“What’s your name, you lovely creature?”
She blushed. “My name is Tina, My Lord.”
“If you plan to see what’s under my clothes, you should call me Seth. I’m feeling fine this morning, but that doesn’t mean I won’t want you soon. You saw that I can call for you, and there is no distance limit that I’ve discovered. With your permission, I’d like to call you when I need you.”
Tina smiled and nodded. “This robe shows that you have my permission and the permission of the other girls, too. That even goes for the white robes, which I thought any man would jump at the chance to deflower.”
“A young lady who has never been touched means less to me than one who is sweet, loving and beautiful. A girl like you, for example, excites me more than a girl who’s never been with a man.”
She blushed and became shy as we walked back through town. The yellow robes were ahead of us talking to people and Noam walked beside me. I slipped my arm around Tina’s waist as we walked. I might have felt guilty if Diana, the only consort I had until Anne and Tabitha returned, hadn’t made excuses for turning me down this morning. I let my hand slip down Tina’s back and become familiar with her firm backside. She grinned shyly and we walked through the large city. At least if Diana decided not to be there for me, I had others who would be. Tabitha had suggested that I call on Diana if I needed attention or magic rebuilt. She didn’t seem anxious to do that, so Tabitha shouldn’t have a problem with these other girls. It wouldn’t be like I was taking consorts, but more like getting assistance with a service I performed for the district.
Chapter Twelve
Back at the gate I kissed Tina goodbye, blew kisses to the light blue and white robes and went inside. Inside the house, I met Celina coming downstairs. “Hello to the most beautiful lady in the world! How are you this morning?”
She smiled. “Morning? It’s nearly noon, big brother. I was in your room and a girl, who said her name was Diana, was there. She was worried because she couldn’t find you.”
I shrugged. “She’s someone that Tabitha and I took as a consort. I’m not sure she really wants the position, though. We’ve been together one night and we’ve already had a disagreement.”
She patted my arm. “I wouldn’t worry about it. As much as the people love you, I’m sure that you can find some young ladies to join the family. By looking at you, I see that you’ve been working today already. If you ever need help with healing these wonderfully friendly folks, I’d be happy to assist.”
“There weren’t many today and I think I’m getting better at the healing skill. I’m no Chloe, but perhaps with a lot of practice, I’ll get there.”
Celina laughed. “Now, that is setting the bar high and is a worthwhile goal. Father would be proud.”
I sighed. “He’d be proud unless he thought I was running a cult or something. I’m sure that some people already think that, because of the way the people love me and are learning to love each other. We’re all just working for the betterment of everyone. I’m sure Lia would have fits, though.”
“I’ve been here a bit longer than Lia was and I haven’t seen anything I’d call cultish. You’re not having people sacrificed or robbing them of all their money. You’re just healing them and encouraging them to love each other. I don’t see what could be wrong with that.”
“I often call them my people and that’s what they are. I cringe when I do it because I’m so worried about what people might think I mean. The anti-cult thing was pounded into our heads due to the Calla incident.”
She nodded. “But there aren’t altars in your yard and you aren’t dropping distraught parents from a thousand feet. You shouldn’t let it bother you too much and just be yourself.”
I hugged her. “You do know what to say to cheer me up. Thanks a lot, little sis. My people are building new quarters and are working a field. Would you like to see it? If you wanted, I could introduce you to this pretty girl I met today, too. We could take her with us so she could learn I’m a nice guy and spread the word.”
“That would be much nicer than sitting in the house all day. I’d love to go with you. I’d like to meet this girl, too.”
I turned to the ever-present Noam. “Celina and I are going to go back out south of town. You could go visit with the yellow robes and find out if there is anything that needs to be brought to my attention. I believe that we’ll fly out there, because it’s much faster than walking. My safety won’t be an issue.”
He nodded and we walked to the yard. I used my remote viewing to scan the light blue robes in front of the gate. When I located Tina, I remote ported her to where we were standing in the yard. There was a collective gasp from the people along the fence and then quiet returned.
“Tina, I’d like you to meet my sister Celina. She’s fifteen, believe it or not, and is going to be staying at the house with me for a while. She has the same abilities that I have and will be a great help if we have a crowd to heal again.”
Tina curtsied after regaining her bearings. “It’s very nice to meet you Celina. I hope that Seth enjoys my company enough that I have a chance to get to know you better.”
Celina smiled and nodded then I explained to Tina what we were going to do. Her eyes showed terror at the thought of flying, but her demeanor never wavered. I shielded her, wrapped her in a tethered bubble and the three of us slowly rose off the ground. There were exclamations and yells from the road as we rose. To quiet them quickly, I accelerated our climb to five hundred feet, then swiftly traveled south and out of sight. I slowed when I heard Tina gasping and she looked close to passing out! I pulled her to me and held her while whispering in her ear. She finally calmed and we continued.
As we got close to the new farm, I signaled Celina to stop. We hovered in the air and I told her my plan. “We should go invisible and land out of sight. That way we won’t disrupt the work that is going on. We might even be able to lend a hand if there’s anything that needs our special touch.”
Celina laughed. “So much for the vacation idea. As long as they aren’t doing a full plumbing job, I’ll be happy to help.”
“You know, you just gave me an idea. There are several wells in the city, but there are none out here. The people that move here will have difficulties hauling water. We should help them out with that and with the two of us, it shouldn’t be hard. We’re not Davie, but we’re not useless, either.”
“It sounds like we gotta plan, so let’s go look.”
We landed a little way down the road and dropped our invisibility. Tina was standing, a bit wobbly, and shaking her head. I went to her and put my arms around her. “What’s the matter? Are you going to be all right?”
She looked at me with a huge grin. “I was flying and then I couldn’t see myself. I thought I was supposed to show you a good time and I’m having all the fun!”
“I’m enjoying your company and perhaps we’ll enjoy each other more in a more private setting. I’m glad for your companionship, either way.”
We strolled over to the new building and watched as the workmen nailed boards across supports. They looked as though they were getting ready to raise a wall. Our timing couldn’t have been better, because that was a dangerous task. I approached the men, who didn’t even look up until I was on them.
“Gentlemen, I hope you’re having a wonderful day. If that wall is ready to go up, my sister and I could raise it for you.”
The men looked up, jumped to their feet and bowed. “My Lord, we wouldn’t want to inconvenience you with such a minor task.”
Celina came up behind me. “I’ll get this, big brother. If you men are ready and will point out where you want this lined up, I’ll lift it for you.”
I was behind her, now, and nodded at the men. A very burley man grinned. “Well, little Miss, we just need the farthest part from the building lined up with the support at the top. When you get there, we’ll nail it in place.”
Celina moved around so she was facing the building and g
lanced at the men. Both men were standing with their hands in their pockets, watching, aiming skeptical glances at each other.
My sis shook her head and easily levitated the wall section into position. I had to fight hard to keep from laughing at the looks of bewilderment on the men’s faces.
Celina couldn’t fight it and laughed loudly. “Seth, would you mind nailing that up, please, so I don’t have to hold this all day?”
I grinned and floated a bag of nails from beside one man’s feet to my hand. Using telekinesis, I fired nails through the wood until the wall was secure. I then turned to face the men. “I’d like to introduce you to my little sister. As you just learned, she shouldn’t be underestimated. Her powers and abilities are almost equal to mine.”
Cel giggled. “What do you mean, ‘almost’?”
The largest man spoke. “Young Miss, we’re sorry if we showed any disrespect. The awesome powers that you and your brother wield are new to us. Please forgive us if you felt slighted.”
Celina smiled and curtsied. “No harm done, sir. Being my size at fifteen, I’m used to things like that happening. I know how loving and caring the people of the city are, and know you didn’t mean any disrespect by your actions. My brother mentioned that a well could be helpful out here. Do either of you have any idea where one should be placed?”
The men brightened at the possibility of a well close by. They talked between themselves about their vision of a courtyard in front of the living quarters. A well, they decided, would be the perfect centerpiece for a beautiful, relaxing area.
The younger man came forward. “Miss, a well is a won’erful idea and we have th’ perfect location. If ya want, we can show y’all where we’s thinkin’ it should go.”
Cel nodded and we followed the men across the field that was to be the courtyard. The men paced back and forth thirty yards from the building, lining up with the door. Finally, the larger man used his heel to mark an ‘X’ in the dirt.
The smaller man announced, “This is where we’s think it would look the best. If we’s start now, we oughtta have it done in less than a fortnight.”
Celina smiled and voiced her opinion, “I agree that a nicely decorated well, decorated like a wishing well with a stone base, wood frame, and a house-like roof, would be lovely. I just don’t like the idea of you having to wait two weeks for water. I’m going to look at something and see what we’re dealing with.”
The men bobbed their heads and I beamed as my tiny sis began looking through the earth. I stood and watched as her magic went searching for water below ground. For five minutes, we all stood silently while the men and Tina looked at each other in confusion.
Finally Cel looked at me and winked. “Seventy-five feet, but one hundred just to make sure. Do you want to do it or can I help?”
“This has become your project, lil’ sis, but I’ll certainly help so you don’t have to drain yourself. If I let you suffer a blackout, Mother would have our brothers drag us back to Eredwynn before we could say ‘port’!”
“That’s so true, so how about I pull up a decorative stone base in a circle… like this.” She focused on the earth beneath the ‘X’ the man had drawn. Even twenty feet away, we could feel the earth vibrate beneath our feet as she pulled a wheel of stone from the earth.
I went to the base and stood on one side while she positioned herself on the other. I grinned because it had been far too long since we’d worked together. I nodded at her and we began compressing the rock and dirt into the sides of the shaft that would soon be a well. Just under an hour and seventy-five feet into the well, we made sure the walls were porous so water could fill the well. At the end of the hour, we were done.
Celina approached the men again who were staring at the new well, unable to believe what they’d seen. My tiny sis spoke with authority, “Now gentlemen, if you’ll build a windlass, get a rope and bucket attached to it and then a roof like I suggested, you’ll have a place to be proud of. From now on, don’t judge people by the way they look, but by how they treat others. Now I’m going to have my brother take this young lady and me to dinner. Like my brother says, take care of each other and be careful.”
The men bowed and we strolled back behind the building. Casting invis and our flying spells, we lifted off. Once out of sight of the field, we dropped the invisibility spell. I asked Tina, “Is there a town close by where we could get something to eat?”
She shook her head. “The closest town with an inn is twenty miles south. We couldn’t make it to Susal before midnight, let alone dinner time.”
Celina laughed loudly. “You wanna bet?” She took Tina’s other hand, nodded to me and we accelerated. Flying at five hundred feet, Tina lost her nerve when we passed six hundred miles an hour. She began screaming, so we braked quickly and landed within sight of the town. I held Tina to me until she regained her composure.
I looked her in the eye. “You shouldn’t be afraid. You know that neither Celina nor I will let you get hurt. Now, let’s go find something for dinner and we’ll port back home so you don’t have to go through that again right now.”
Her shaking was starting to ease up and she took a deep breath. “Thank you for being so understanding. I didn’t mean to ruin the trip.”
I shook my head and we started walking. “No harm done and it was time to land, anyway. Maybe you’ll learn to enjoy flying as much as sis and I do. I’ve heard that you get giddy when you first try it, but Cel and I can’t remember the first time we flew. We were only six or seven at the time.”
At the edge of town, we could hear loud, angry voices coming from down the street. The last time I’d heard that, a man was swinging a sword at me. Celina and I shifted into defensive mode and we proceeded down the street.
We rounded a corner onto Main Street and saw a man being followed by a group of a dozen other men. They were yelling and cursing at the poor fellow and throwing rotten vegetables at him. The man tripped and fell, causing the pack to pounce on him, punching and kicking. What jumped out at me, and Celina, too, was the dark blue robe that the man was wearing. Celina shielded the downed man and ported him to us. Seeing a friend being treated like that made me furious!
I walked toward the bullies and called loudly, “You must be very brave men to go after someone with only a twelve-to-one advantage!”
Someone from the crowd yelled, “Look, there’s some more of ‘um! That one’s in whore’s robes; does that make the littler one a whore in training?”
That was not at all the right thing to say at that moment. I yelled back, “We try to show people love, but sometimes love must be tempered with wrath!” I floated ten feet into the air and cast an eight foot tall ‘flamestrike’ column in front of me. I hoped that the effect would look like I was actually in the fire and I amplified my voice and warned, “Either accept the love that we offer or don’t. If you don’t want to be with us, leave us in peace.”
I extinguished the spell and floated back to earth. I turned to the girls and the man that Celina was healing. “I don’t think that today would be a day for dinner here. We should get something back in Krose.”
Celina laughed nervously. “After that display, I think they’d let us in anywhere and not take our money. You’re right, though, and this man lives in Krose, too. He was just down here to talk to some family members about coming to our city so they could live in peace.”
“I suggest we port back to the house; this man can find his way home and we can eat in my room. Does everyone agree?”
Everyone nodded and Celina looked behind me down the street. “It doesn’t look like we’ll have any more trouble here. All our friends seem to have remembered places they needed to be.”
I looked around and chuckled; there wasn’t a warm body to be seen. We ported back to Krose and the man we’d rescued relaxed rapidly.
He shook my hand. “My Lord, I was hoping to meet you in person someday. I just wish it could have been under different circumstances. I doubt those people will b
other us again; you scared the starlight out of me and I knew you were on my side. I can’t imagine what they were thinking. Thank you very much.”
“No, my friend, thank you for being with us and caring enough to go to your family with our love. Just remember that I love you all.”
The man bowed. “And we also love you.” He turned and was let out of the gate, where he went straight to the yellow robes.
Celina, Tina and I went inside and on the way upstairs, I asked a maid to have dinner for three sent up. At the top of the stairs, we were confronted by a tall man in a black robe. A slit had been sewn in the cloth at the waist, where the handle of a sword showed through.
Noam greeted us, “Welcome home, My Lord. I trust you had no problems without me.”
I chuckled. “Nothing that we couldn’t handle. So, tell me about your new choice in clothing.”
He smiled. “After the incident with the attack, the yellows decided that you needed more protection. They also decided that your protection should be visible, and so the fifth caste was created.”
I was confused and started counting aloud, “Black for my guard, yellow for the advisors, blue for the faithful and maybe the two different classes of girls?”
Noam shook his head, “Close, but not quite right. The girls are one caste and you and yours are the other. I’m supposed to ask if you’d be willing to wear a red robe so the crowds could keep a better eye on you. They want you and your sister, your wife and child to wear them. There has also been talk of pink robes for the special women in your life. For example, Anne and Miss Tina, who you’ve been spending a lot of time with, might wear pink. They suggested Diana, but I know that you’re still undecided there.”
I laughed. “You’re a very observant Valet, guard, messenger and whatever else you do. It’s good to have you with us.”
Noam grinned and nodded; the two girls and I then went inside. Tina started looking around the room and commenting on how nice everything was. Coming from a poor family, she was impressed by things that Cel and I took for granted. The matching chairs around our table were even worth noticing. Then she saw the window and the balcony beyond. She called me over. “Seth, you can see the new guards that Noam was telling you about. There are a couple moving behind the people and two standing beside the regular city guards that normally work your gate.”
Seth, A Naiad's Son (Generations of Eredwynn Book 3) Page 12
