The Clearing

by Lina J. Potter

  I immediately had the manager thrown out of the castle and bought supplies to keep the people of Earton from dying over the winter. I also hired new guards.

  Misfortune struck again when the church of Aldonai burned to the ground. Miraculously, no one was hurt. Then, as soon as your soldiers arrived in Earton, one of them tried to take my life. In his clumsy attempt, he almost killed your daughter. Shortly thereafter, Leis Antrel and his men heroically defended us from slave traders who were directed to Earton by Etor and Shirvey Lindt. I handed Lindt over to the king’s envoy, along with the traitorous soldier and the surviving slave traders. All of them will be tried and will likely hang.

  The one bright note in all that has happened of late is that a large deposit of amber has been discovered in Earton. Several peasant families had been digging amber in secret. Your manager kept this from you. The king’s envoy will see that the guilty parties are duly punished. It remains, however, to determine how best to proceed with the amber. I have already sent the king’s share with his envoy and will continue to do so.

  Please also find with my letter some copies I had made of your manager’s accounts. These are all the accounts I was able to find. You may review them to convince yourself of his dishonesty. Miranda Catherine is happy and in good health, as am I.

  I pray for your health and wellbeing.

  As always, your loving and devoted wife, Lilian Elizabeth Mariella Earton.”

  Lily wiped the sweat from her face. All her correspondence was ready to leave with Hans Tremain. She suspected that he would be in Earton for another week or two while he questioned the last of the slave traders and helped her organize teams to recover the remaining amber.

  She took a deep breath, sealed her letters, and left her study. There was much work left to do.

  Gardwig had a commanding presence, but when Richard first set eyes on him, all he felt was pity. He saw an overweight man with red eyes and a bandaged leg, and he thought to himself that it would be better to die quickly than to rot away slowly, day after day. He noticed that the attractive woman standing next to the king looked on him with sincere love and care. Gardwig was one of the lucky ones. He had found his Jessamine (after several failed attempts).

  Gardwig and Richard had already exchanged letters, and the prince listened patiently while the old man complimented him loudly: he was intelligent, and brave, and a copy of his father. A son like himself was worth his weight in gold. When it was his turn, he praised the king to the skies: there was no better king on the Earth than Gardwig, and his kingdom had prospered under his reign. His wife was a beautiful angel. Aldonai had blessed him with sons, and it was to be hoped that they would take after their father.

  Both sides poured on the honey as best they knew how. Gardwig introduced his wife, and Richard was careful in his compliments. She was much younger than her husband, but he didn’t think she would ever betray him. From the way she spoke to Gardwig, he surmised that she was a homebody. Richard felt that he was a pretty good judge of character.

  Finally, Gardwig held out a hand. “And this is my eldest daughter, Anna.”

  There was nothing warm and fatherly in Gardwig’s voice, and Richard noted it. This was his daughter from his first wife, a woman he had not loved. He had wanted a son, but the daughter was not bad at all. She was a small brunette with smooth, olive skin and intelligent eyes.

  It was Anna’s eyes that unsettled Richard. She was sizing him up, and she was nervous, but behind it all, he saw cold calculation. She looked at him the way women at court looked at their prey as they calculated what they could gain in return for their services.

  He kept his thoughts to himself. Bowing politely to Anna, he expressed his admiration for the princess: her beauty outshone the sun, and her eyes were like stars. Anna whispered the proper response, and Richard held up his end of the conversation, feeling like a fly caught in a bowl of honey (while being eyed by several hungry frogs).

  After an hour of ceremony and diplomacy, Gardwig finally opened the dancing. Naturally, Richard danced with Anna, occasionally finding time to dance with other ladies of the court. All the while, one thought circled in his mind: “She isn’t my Jessamine. She isn’t my Jessamine.”

  Anna was cold and a little afraid. He didn’t believe she was capable of sincerely loving someone, but he had to admit that she played the game well.

  Finally, Richard was able to slip away and take a break behind one of the heavy drapes that lined the ballroom. Three minutes later, Jess slid in next to him with a goblet of cold wine in his hands. Richard tossed it back like water, leaned his forehead against the stone wall and groaned.

  “So, you don’t like the princess?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “She’s not bad, you know. Did you see her breasts? She’s got everything.”

  “Not everything. They forgot to include kindness and love.”

  “Listen to yourself! She’s a nice little piece of ass, Richard. She’s shy, that’s all.”

  Not exactly. Richard trusted his instincts: Anna wasn’t shy, she was just playing the role she thought he expected of her. The strongest feeling he got from her was fear. She was afraid of something or someone. Her father? It was possible. Gardwig had never been known for his good humor.

  Richard shook his head. “I’ll give her a chance, but I don’t think she’s the woman for me. I’d like to see Lidia.”

  “Do you think she’ll have a better body?”

  Richard looked away. He loved his cousin, but sometimes he was disgusted by Jess’ habit of comparing women’s physical attributes. The prince would have liked to see a woman who could challenge his cousin’s opinion of himself, but so far it had never happened. Looks, wealth – those were the things that caught Jess’ attention. Richard already had wealth and title, and he wondered if he would ever find a woman who looked past those things and saw him as a man. He was tired of people looking at him like pedigreed livestock. A little bit of warmth was what he wanted in his family.

  Anna stood off to one side after Richard slipped away. He wasn’t interested. She could feel it with her skin. There had been no chemistry, no miracle, no lightning. Richard was not interested. He would be polite to her, but she did not attract him.

  “You won’t catch this one by putting your breasts in his face.”

  Anna jumped and turned in horror. The jester had stolen up to her silently. “Try harder, girl. You have one month.”

  “And then?”

  “And then I’ll get involved. It’ll be better if you do it on your own.”

  Anna nodded. She was terribly afraid of this man. Altres Lort gave a crooked smile and slipped away into the shadows. Anna looked around the room to find Richard. She would do her very best. She would walk through fire to make Richard fall for her. If she failed, she would no longer be needed, and she knew what her father did with women who were not needed.

  There would be no mercy.

  “My Lord, I hasten to inform you that the cow is very friendly with the king’s envoy. Amber has been discovered in Earton. Slave traders arrived, but they were beaten back. I await instructions.”

  A group of mercenaries was traveling the back roads of the kingdom. They made little noise and avoided being seen together. The only mischief they made was raping a couple of peasant girls, but they didn’t think anyone would mind. Some of the men joked that they were improving the local stock.

  Earton was far away, but there were no other jobs to be had, and they had hopes of picking up work along the way. That was the mercenary way of life.

  The next twenty days went by in such a flash that Lily later had trouble even remembering them. She was busy doing good work around the estate, but each week flew by in what seemed like minutes.

  Hans took over directing the work at the salt pit and smokehouse on the coast, while Lily focused on how to pay the peasants who actually did the work. She knew that she could have ordered them to do it for free, but she also knew that they all
had fields and gardens that would have to be tended by others, and she wanted their families to be secure. She also finalized her list of things that needed to be bought in Altver and prepared to send Torius a collection of the latest items Helke had made. Erik had promised to make the trip for her, and she trusted him. In any case, there was no one else who could go.

  Lily wanted to find time to sit down with Helke and talk about what they could make out of amber, but there were problems with the deposit that had to be dealt with first. The men who examined the site told her that the deposit was small at the surface, and that most of it was located at a much greater depth. That explained why Erk Grismo and his family had decided to bring in the slave traders – they needed more men to retrieve the amber. Her estate was sitting on top of great riches, but it would take serious thought and much work to recover it all.

  One afternoon, Lily sat down with Hans and made him an offer. She knew she owed the king one-quarter of the value of the amber she recovered, but she proposed that, instead of sending raw amber, she would give the king finished jewelry. The royal treasury would benefit, and she would get free advertising. Hans thought for a moment and nodded. He had heard of such arrangements.

  While her other projects were bubbling along, she found time to lock herself in her study for a few hours and draw some of the things she wanted Helke to make out of Earton amber. Lily knew she was no artist, but she hoped her sketches would at least give him an idea of the possibilities.

  When she showed her drawings to Helke, he did a fair imitation of a man having a heart attack and told her that it would take him a month to make what she wanted, even if he had excellent apprentices and slept just two hours out of every twenty-four. Hans, who had enjoyed Helke’s performance, just smiled and offered to stay for another month so that the Eveer could complete the work. Since the king had not sent for him yet, he could use his own discretion.

  Lily suspected that Hans had developed a taste for life in Earton. With the slave traders out of the way, he enjoyed the peace and quiet and being entrusted with important work. It made for a nice change after the intrigues and back-stabbing at court. Sometimes Hans told Lily about life at court when they ate dinner together. The countess caught her breakfast and lunch whenever she could, but she always made time to sit down for dinner with Miranda (who was increasingly proud of her new table manners), the pastor and his son (whom she graciously allowed to join them), Leif and Ingrid (when they were at the castle), Erik, Leis, Lons Avels, Helke and his sister, Tahir… It was an extremely eclectic group of people gathered around the table every evening, but Lily didn’t mind at all. These people were her team. She would have let some of the craftsmen join the table if she had dared.

  Speaking of craftsmen, the glassblower and the blacksmith now hung on the countess’ every word when she stopped by their workshop. The young men already thought of themselves as Creators with a capital c. No one had ever put glass and metal together, and now they were doing it and getting outstanding results. Lily hoped that they would pass on their knowledge, so that in another hundred years or so there would be craftsmen capable of making things like the Venetian glass of her own world. In the meantime, they adored her like a pair of puppies, and she suspected that they would never leave, even if she tried to fire them. (However, she reminded herself that she still needed to ask the pastor to bless the new mirrors. Otherwise he might start to get ideas.)

  Marcia and the other two dressmakers were in love with Lily, as well. They had already churned out several hundred feet of lace, stopping only to eat and sleep, and were constantly begging Lily to give them new patterns and ideas. She gave them basic diagrams for shawls, belts, gloves, scarfs, veils and mantles, which they slowly perfected until they had a garment they could be proud of. Once the mastered each design, they worked on making their work neater and more elegant.

  Soon, Lily hinted that they should try incorporating beads in their lace. Helke just moaned when she informed him of the quantity of beads they would need, and put both of his nephews and some of the older Virman children to work making beads out of leftover bits and pieces of amber.

  Trost was already much better. Watching him run around helping his uncle, Lily remembered that she needed to improve her rudimentary still so she could produce decent alcohol to use as a disinfectant.

  None of the wounded men had died, so Tahir followed Lily around in hopes of gaining more knowledge. Jaimie was always close behind him.

  Whenever Lily managed to shake off the craftsmen, the dressmakers and Tahir and Jaimie, there was always Miranda, who looked up at her with adoration. Lily found that she had strange feelings about the girl. Was it just tenderness? Or was it love? She would do her best to make friends with her husband, if only for the girl’s sake.

  Most days, Lily felt like a rope with ten ends, all of them being pulled in different directions. When she got up in the morning, she opened her wardrobe and looked at herself in the long metal mirror. A tall blonde in a trim green and white outfit looked back at her.

  Who am I now?

  As the days wore on, there was less and less of Aliya left in her. She couldn’t remember what Alex’s eyes had looked like, or how her father laughed at off-color jokes, or what the head of surgery said to her the first time she walked into the operating room. It was all gone. Her new reality was the castle, Earton, and these strange people that she had to build a life with.

  What has happened to you, Aliya Skorolenok? Who have you become?

  The reflection said nothing, because there was nothing to say.

  Richard was lying on his bed when Jess walked in. “Well?” he asked.

  “What do you mean ‘well?’ Can’t you greet me properly?” Jess objected. Richard reached for a pillow to throw, but his cousin put up a hand. “I give up.” He sat down on the bed. “Here’s what I’ve learned. Anna has been living like a hermit in the country. Once he heard there was a chance of marrying her off to you, her father brought her back here and had her dressed up for show. There’s nothing compromising in her past, or if there is, nobody knows about it.”

  “Not bad.”

  “But you don’t like her.”

  “She’s attractive, but the more I see her the less I am able to imagine her as my queen.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can see straight through her. She’s petty and spoiled and loves to have her own way.”

  “Of course she does. She’s a woman.”

  “Do you remember Jessie?”

  Jerrison shrugged. “Women like Aunt Jessie are one in ten thousand. Why do you think you’ll get lucky?”

  “I don’t know. But Anna is just…”

  “She isn’t stupid.”

  “She is. She may know enough about everyday things, but she isn’t capable of thinking about anything more complicated than how to pull out her rivals’ tail feathers. That isn’t intelligence. It’s cunning.”

  “Are you ready to leave?”

  “I can’t. We have to stay here for at least a month. And I’ll need to write to my father for instructions.”

  Jess sighed. “Gardwig needs this union.”

  “I won’t choose blindly. I need to see Lidia.”

  “I’ve met her. She’s about as pretty as a wool sock. Is that what you want?”

  Richard put his head in his hands. “I’d rather marry an ugly girl with brains than a beautiful idiot.” The two cousins sat for a moment, side by side, each thinking of his own problems of the heart. Richard spoke first. “When are you going to get tired of that girl you’ve been seeing?”

  “Adele?” Jess shrugged. “She’s a tigress in bed, but afterwards she always cries.”

  “That’s too bad. No one likes a woman to be a nuisance.”

  Standing on the other side of the door, Altres Lort frowned. Anna hadn’t managed to catch her prince. He knew she had tried. He had been watching. But no matter, he still had a month. It was time to talk to Gardwig and schedule a royal hunt t
o include their distinguished guests.

  The jester quietly stepped away from the door and slipped away through a secret passage.

  There was a letter from Hans Tremain on the king’s desk. It was the second letter his envoy had sent.

  “Your Majesty, Earton was attacked by slave traders, but we fought them off. I have learned that there is a large deposit of amber on the estate. The old manager and his accomplices were selling the amber in secret. I must stay here for now to help ensure that the estate is capable of recovering the remaining amber efficiently. I will bring the taxed share with me. Miranda Catherine and the countess are well. I remain your faithful servant, Hans Tremain.”

  Edward felt the letter left much unsaid. There was amber in Earton, but who found it? Slave traders had been plaguing the estate, so why did Jess send his daughter there? And why had he left his wife there? Lilian might not be the loveliest girl in the world, but Edward had no desire for a falling out with August Broklend, who was prepared to go through fire and water for his daughter. The king knew he could put pressure on August, but he hesitated to anger a valuable and talented man. There was no other boatbuilder like him in the kingdom. He tapped a finger on the envoy’s letter.

  How much am I asking of Jess? Lilian is not the wife he wanted. I understand that, and I understand why he wants her to stay in the country, but I don’t see why he can’t ensure that she is safe, at the very least. Now I hear that the manager was a thief who fired the guards and stole valuable resources from the estate, and that slave traders have come to see Earton as easy prey. What in the world is the boy thinking of?

  The king put his head in his hands. He loved his son, but Jess was begging to be taught a lesson.

  Meanwhile, life continued apace in Earton.

  One day, Baron Donter showed up without warning for a repeat visit. Just when Lily thought she would have to put on another show to entertain him, Hans Tremain sailed out into the courtyard. He held up a large gold medal so that the baron could see it clearly and asked him – very politely, of course – what business he had in Earton.