by A. F. Dery
Thane frowned. “If there are witnesses? How exactly does one prove irreverence if there are no witnesses?”
Again the ghost of a smile. “Who said anything about proof? If the allegedly guilty party turns out to be innocent, they will surely have shed their blood for some other sin, or else why would the gods allow the false accusation in the first place?”
“You can’t really believe such rubbish,” Thane said sharply. Kesara gave a little shrug.
“It doesn’t matter whether I believe it, my lord. My opinions are of no consequence. The people for whom it does matter, do believe, and that’s all that is relevant to anyone.”
“If I ask for your opinion, then I believe it to be of consequence,” he said heatedly. He pressed his lips tightly together and held her gaze. She looked more puzzled now than intimidated, her brows furrowed and her teeth worrying at her lip pensively.
Finally she said, “I don’t agree with their reasoning, my lord. But to be truthful, I don’t know what else would be any better, in practice. I somehow think that any way of doing things would become twisted in the hands of those with power in Ytar right now. I’ve never been asked to consider it before.”
“You need to be asked to think about right and wrong?” Thane rolled his eyes.
Kesara reddened a little and said, “Usually I’m discouraged from thinking at all, my lord. I have never been sought after for my intelligence.”
“What are you sought out for, then? Your miraculous headache-curing powers?”
“Well, yes,” she said, finally spearing a small piece of beet with her fork. “As I told you before, not everyone can.”
“Not everyone can think, either,” Thane muttered. “Ytar appears to make that plain enough.”
“Oh, pray don’t judge the whole of my country based on anything I say,” Kesara said earnestly, food once again forgotten. “I have my own reasons for feeling like I do, but there are good things with the bad, and there are many who could never be compelled to leave of their own volition.”
Thane snorted. “That does not improve the matter at all in my eyes. It amazes me, some of the insane places people choose to live, the idiocy and ignorance they are willing to swallow each and every day to stay there. I like to think my awe-inspiring leadership acumen and military prowess keep my people here, but the truth is, they stayed through the reign of men like my father, who treated Eladria more like his own personal harem than anything else. He couldn’t even be bothered to step outside the Keep if there was a conflict requiring confrontation, sending his generals to do all in his stead whether they were qualified or not. By the time he died, I had to rebuild the army from the ground up and raise wages in the Keep by nearly half to convince women to work here again.” He gave a humorless laugh. “I believe that would have been the case even if I’d inherited more than his hair color.”
“Perhaps you are right, and people simply get attached to the land they live on,” Kesara said. “People might stay out of familiarity, or because they don’t believe the ills of other countries would leave them better off than the ills of their own- the ones they at least have the benefit of knowing. I’m just suggesting that you ought not rely on my bitterness to come to any judgments about my homeland. And anyway, your people may not stay because of you personally, but they stay loyal because of you. I have seen your troops, I have heard them speak of you well before I ever saw you myself. I cannot believe they would do for your father all they would do for you without a moment’s hesitation.”
Thane didn’t know what to say to that. He was used to flattery of one kind or another, even looking as he did; it was inevitable for one in his position, particularly when at Court. But there was an unusual earnestness to Kesara’s words that made them difficult to brush off as such. He felt uncomfortably hot and motioned for a servant to refill his flagon while he contemplated the remains on his plate. “That may be true,” he said quietly when it was full again. “But that is the military, and roughly half of my country is ineligible for service.”
“You think women are unaffected by the judgments of their men?” Kesara raised her eyebrows. “Eladria IS very different from Ytar, then. Where I am from, women look to their husbands or fathers to lead them.”
“I don’t think Eladrian women believe in being led by anyone, but I will admit I’m not really an expert on this subject. Few who have claimed to be would have the audacity to dare such folly twice,” Thane said dryly. “Do you suppose the likes of Cook bow to her husband’s opinions?”
“Cook’s married? Really? Er, do you mean the newest one?” Kesara asked, surprised. Thane eyed her in amusement.
“Yes, of course. I know you may think of us as barbarians, Kes, but the fact is, marriage before procreation is still the norm here.” Again she frowned, looking confused, so he prompted, “You did know she’s breeding?”
Kesara blushed, looking away from him quickly. He found, to his delight, that he never grew tired of seeing her turn red. It was truly a sight to behold, the deep tomato hue spreading rapidly from neck to cheeks, obvious even with her tan skin.
“I had no idea,” she sputtered. “I thought she was just...” She made an expansive gesture with her hands.
“Chubby?” he suggested gently, trying miserably to suppress his grin.
Kesara’s eyes flicked to the servant who stood by the wall, awaiting his command, and he clearly saw her dilemma. She would be returning to the kitchens, now that he no longer needed her assistance, and he could not imagine Cook being terribly pleased at her tactless surprise of a moment ago.
“I am sure this conversation will go no further than the two of us. I have no need for gossiping servants,” he assured her. “If it happens otherwise, of course, I must insist you tell me. It is a security risk, to keep in my employ one who could not hold their tongue.”
“Thank you, my lord,” she murmured, but she glanced again at the blank-faced servant who attended them, obviously uneasy.
He sighed. It was all too easy for him to forget her place. She spoke more like one of his noble peers at Court than one of his servants, and to his surprise, he found her interesting. And of course, it was not only her place he forgot, but his own face along with it. He was keenly aware that she still reacted visibly sometimes to his changes of expression, but the reaction had rapidly grown more subdued over the course of the day, occasionally even being absent entirely. He wondered what she would be like if she were around him longer still, if she would learn to look at him like any other man.
Now where did that thought come from? he chided himself silently. After all this time, I ought to know better. Even now, he saw she cringed a little, and realized he was scowling fiercely, albeit not quite at her. He composed himself with a rueful chuckle. “Take your time and finish your meal,” he told her. “I’m sure you know the way back downstairs when you’re done. I have some things to attend to but we will talk again.”
They had to, after all. Thane still wasn’t too certain what he ought to do about her, but he hoped Graunt would come through for him.
The past night and day had brought him to one sure conclusion, however. If she was a vile sorceress, he would banish her, not execute her. It wasn’t the usual way he did things, but he had found genuine enjoyment in another person’s company for the first time since Malachi had turned into an idiot, and the Dread Lord of Eladria was never one to leave a debt unpaid.
Thane took his time walking back to Graunt’s cavern, enjoying the dim coolness of the falling dusk and, if he were honest with himself, delaying the inevitable just that little while longer. For the first time since he’d met Kes, he actually felt nervous at the thought of having to banish her. He didn’t like to think himself weak or overly sentimental, and the truth was that he barely knew her. It was ridiculous to feel fretful over it, and yet he was. He didn’t want to hear it, and he had a slightly sick feeling that it had a little less to do with the return of suffering through his headaches than it ought to have done.
He liked her. He could admit that, if only to himself, couldn’t he?
But even his dawdling could only last so long, and so all too soon, for the second time that day, Thane found himself kneeling before Graunt. She waved a pointy hand at him impatiently.
“Get yourself a chair, boy,” she muttered. “You’ll make an old woman feel important, and there’ll be no living with her.”
Thane obeyed, retrieving the same chair he had pulled over in his earlier visit. The cavern room seemed to revert to its previous order, or lack thereof, the moment he left it, every time and without fail. Once he was seated, Graunt gave him a sly smile which only hinted at the sharp points of her teeth, her little black eyes bright. “You’ve never kept mirrors in your rooms before today,” she remarked.
“I have hung no mirrors, Graunt,” he said, perplexed. He knew Graunt was old, older than himself, older than his parents. He wondered uneasily if the years were finally starting to tell.
“A good thing, that, for you’d not find another!” Graunt cackled, slapping her knee in her amusement.
“May I borrow your map? For I fear you’ve lost me, old mother,” Thane said politely. Graunt cackled again.
“You have had the best stroke of good fortune, my boy. About time for it, I suppose, given the hand the gods dealt you! Where is the female you brought to me earlier?”
“In the kitchens by now, I expect.”
“Well, get her out of there when you leave me. She should not be kept with the other servants.”
Thane frowned. “Is she dangerous, then?”
“Dangerous?” Graunt hooted. “My gracious! She is a little rabbit with hidden fangs, it’s true, but I tell you to do this for her protection, not theirs. If matters become too ugly between them- and ugly they will become, for the others will be jealous that a foreigner has attracted their lord’s attention- I know you well enough to know you would send her away before disciplining any of that lot. You’ve a tender heart for your kin, Thane, have always had, and this time, it’s not a good thing. It won’t hurt them to share you with one little Ytaren.”
“Then you know what she is about, then?” Thane felt a strange mixture of dread and hope.
“Yes, yes, I’ll admit that your old Graunt was a bit puzzled at first, but it became clear quickly enough,” Graunt said, her eyes glittering. “Somehow, you have ended up with a Mirror in your Keep, Thane! There are so few of them, and none I have ever heard of in this part of the world. Even the High Lord has not such a boon!”
“You mean...Kes is called a Mirror? What does that mean?” Thane’s brows drew together in confusion.
Graunt’s head bobbed vigorously on her thick, folded neck. “It means that she can see your pain, and- like a mirror made of glass- reflects it away from you, when she is bonded to you.”
“How is that possible? Is it sorcery?” Thane realized he was leaning forward towards her and forced himself to settle back.
“It’s not sorcery, Thane, but even if it were, you’ve no room to be so picky,” Graunt chided. “It’s a sort of empathy, focused on pain. You know how I can always seem to tell when you are feeling poorly, even when no one else would see the sign? Or how you just know when your troops are ‘off,’ even if you can’t think of just why?”
“Oh, that,” he scoffed. “It’s just intuition, or instinct. Nothing like this.”
“No, it’s exactly like this,” she said coolly, her little black eyes narrowing into pinpricks. “Or rather, it works the same way, only on a much greater and more focused scale. If you prefer to call it merely a highly specialized and advanced form of intuition, then so be it. It is imperfect, but the best explanation I can offer you.”
“I don’t mean to argue, old mother, forgive me,” Thane said, realizing he had offended her somehow, and he held out his large hands in a helpless sort of way. “But while that could explain how she knows when a person is in pain, or even what their ailments are, it doesn’t really explain how she...reflects it all away, as you put it.”
“No,” Graunt said, relaxing a little. “No, it doesn’t. And I can’t explain it to you, Thane. I’m not sure how she does it. I know it is an instinctive behavior in one of her kind, and one which can be trained. It is not an outside power being used or called to her, as sorcery is.”
He released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and Graunt eyed him curiously. “So relieved, are you, my boy? Thought you’d have to take the ax to her little neck, did you? That would have been a shame. Such a polite little thing. Good manners are so hard to come by in servants in this day and age, for those of us who aren’t ruling our own countries.”
“Yes, a shame,” he echoed, unwilling to think any harder about it. Graunt made a strange humming noise in the back of her throat and shook a pointy finger at him. “You’re not getting attached to her so quickly, are you? I’d expect it of her, that is normal behavior for a mature Mirror, but not of you.”
His eyes widened, genuinely taken aback. It took him a moment to even stammer out the words. “Me, Graunt? Attached? She’s only a servant...and I’ve only ever spent a day with her. Well, a day and a night, but I slept through most of that night. It hardly signifies.” He gave a rueful shrug of one shoulder. “I just do not relish the idea of killing her. She is...not intolerable.”
“A ringing endorsement from the Dread Lord of Eladria,” Graunt observed dryly. “I would be thrilled, except that Mirrors aren’t really for marrying. At least, in their own land, they are not. Their bond is everything to them, but it is not so for the ones they bond with.”
“You keep using that word...tell me about this bond they form.”
Graunt suddenly looked away from him at the fire, shifting a bit in her rocking chair with a rustling noise. “It is...complicated. Mirrors can form temporary, short term bonds with individuals, which enables them to take away their pain, but only if they are physically near. That is what yours does with you. But there is a longer-term bond, a permanent one, that they can only form with a single person in their lifetime. It allows them to take that person’s pain from any distance, no matter where they are. In the part of the world your Mirror hails from, this right to a permanent bond is sold off to the highest bidder when a Mirror reaches maturity.”
“I see,” Thane said slowly. “Kes was telling me she didn’t want to lose her freedom, I suppose that is what she meant. But could she not have remained in Ytar and simply chosen not to sell herself?”
“You misunderstand, my boy,” Graunt said in a low voice. “They do not sell themselves, they are sold. Mirrors require training to be of any good to anyone, and the only places which train them essentially own them from their childhoods on. Oh, it is phrased as ‘selling the bonding right,’ but the Mirrors have no choice in the matter, and it is the same thing as being sold themselves. The phrasing is only semantics to get around the difficulties this can pose in countries where slavery has been abolished.”
“I see,” Thane repeated, only now his voice was a hiss and he was vaguely aware of the arms of the chair splintering under his fingers. No wonder she had run. No wonder she feared the loss of her freedom and expected he would treat her as a slave if he knew about her. She had been a slave and evidently deemed even the prejudices of his people towards foreigners to be preferable to living in such bondage. She obviously did not know that there had been no slaves in Eladria in hundreds of years. His kin once had been an enslaved people, long ago, working these same mines against their wills, bred like cattle with the smallest and weakest destroyed. He could hear the blood roaring in his ears.
“Be calm, my boy,” he heard Graunt’s gravelly voice as if from a distance over the din in his own head. “You know this is the way the world works. It may repulse you, but it is how it is, in many places yet.”
“She is free now,” he ground out from between his teeth. “I will make sure she understands this.”
“You will do as you must, I suppose,” Graunt said levelly. “But keep thi
s also in mind. It is in her nature- and indeed, the purpose which she has been groomed for her entire life- to take away pain. Even knowing the risk of discovery, and fearing, as you say, that her flight would have ended up being for nothing and her freedom lost anyhow, she still exposed herself to do this for you. Whatever she has, she has offered you, and it would be the basest ingratitude to refuse. You can use whatever time she can give you, free from pain, to do all the High Lord asks of you and keep Eladria in good stead with him.”
Thane shook his head slowly. “I do not understand why she would make such an offer. She must not have planned to do so if she has been working in my kitchens for these past months. The last Cook only sent her to me in hopes I would get rid of her, otherwise we never would have met.” He lowered his eyes. “I was at my lowest, when she first saw me. I disgusted myself. Why would she risk herself for such a pathetically weak man as the one she saw? Because of my position? It has gotten her nothing. She is in the kitchens again as we speak.”
“You would have to ask her about that, I expect. But even if she did want some sort of reward for her efforts, do you not think it would be just, considering what she can do?” Graunt looked at him intently. He gave a single nod of his head.
“I suppose it would, but I am not sure what. I do not need her all of the time.” He thought for a moment, then added, “I do not need her at all. I was getting along fine without her. She should live her life as she sees fit, not shackled into some obligation to keep helping me because she did so once before- twice, now.”
“Have you not been listening to me, boy?” Graunt hissed. “She has chosen. You do her no honor to reject her choice.”
“I will not reject it,” Thane said quietly, rising to his feet. “But I would be sure of it. She must know she can leave whenever she wish, and we will work out fair payment for her services between us.”
Graunt sighed in obvious exasperation, raising shiny black eyes to the cavern ceiling as if silently beseeching the gods for deliverance. “You would do much better to heed your old Graunt, and take what is offered to you without all this needless discussion. It will only end in grief, my boy. Your sense of justice is...overdeveloped.”
