Gregan always dressed nicely. Most Torovan men did. When Alythia had first seen him, she'd been so relieved. Her father and eldest brother had assured her that she would not be marrying an ugly man, but then, what would they know?
“How do I look?” she pressed impatiently when her husband did not immediately reply.
“You look…amazing.” Alythia believed him. The night following their wedding, he'd made those feelings clear enough. And on most nights since. Alythia smothered a dainty giggle behind her hand.
“I could tell Selyna and Vansy to leave us for a moment, if you wished? The carriages will not expect us immediately, will they?”
Gregan, to her disappointment, appeared somewhat anxious. “I…well…no, M'Lady, I think I really must attend to the procession. Mother will be up to see you shortly.”
And he departed, closing the door behind. Alythia frowned. “He's so timid!” she exclaimed, turning back to the mirror. “I wish he'd just grab me sometimes!”
“A Torovan man is not a Lenay man,” Vansy said knowingly, combing out her princess's hair, with several pins yet to go in. Vansy was tall and sensible, an older girl from Tyree. Selyna was smaller and dark, from northern Banneryd. “Torovan men have more manners.”
“Too much so, sometimes. And why must he call on his mother all the time?” Alythia and Lady Halmady were not on good terms. The old lady was a witch.
“Family is so important here,” Selyna ventured.
“Hmph,” said Alythia. “And he called me ‘M'Lady,’ did you hear that? He always does that, even when we're alone sometimes. And he's always anxious, like he's scared he'll offend me or something.”
“I think he merely needs time to get to know you,” Vansy said decisively, sliding in another pin. “Marriage is a big thing to a young man, especially one who's never had much experience with women before.”
Alythia frowned. “Don't you think?”
“With Lady Halmady watching over him?” Vansy countered.
“I suppose,” Alythia conceded. She was so glad of her maids. Especially Vansy. Not only was it nice to speak Lenay, it was nice to have two people around who weren't afraid to tell her what they thought. So many Torovans seemed afraid to tell the truth to a person's face. Sometimes they were so polite, and so gracious, it became exasperating. “He is rather…well, let's just say that he fumbles a lot.” Selyna giggled.
“And,” Vansy continued, “M'Lady can be somewhat intimidating.”
“Intimidating?” Alythia gaped at her in the mirror. “Exactly how am I intimidating?!”
“M'Lady is very beautiful, and very headstrong, and in case M'Lady has not noticed, Petrodor is not a city accustomed to beautiful, headstrong women who say what they think.”
Alythia had to laugh. Vansy was right, of course. But that only made the challenge greater, and more exciting. “They'll come to like me,” she said slyly. “You'll see. I'll win them over. I'll become the talk of all Petrodor. They've never seen anyone like me before.”
Lady Halmady, however, had other ideas. “The front of that dress,” she said disdainfully, upon entering the chambers, “is disgracefully low. Remove it at once and find another.”
Lady Halmady dressed principally in black, as was fitting for a high-class lady of Petrodor whose hair was beginning to grey. Her face was round, and her hair curled like her son's, but her eyes were hard, and tight with little wrinkles. Alythia found her stiff with formality, and utterly obsessed with matters of status and decorum. It made a distasteful spectacle. Nobility and royalty should be graceful, not uptight and insecure.
“Oh, but really, Mother,” Alythia laughed, trying to make light of it.
“Really nothing.” Her mother-in-law's lips pursed together tightly. “The festival celebrations of Sadisi are some of the grandest on the Petrodor calendar. The honour of House Halmady is at stake. I'll not have it said that the heir of Halmady is wedded to a highlands wench of easy virtue.”
“You…you accuse highlanders of easy virtue?” Alythia asked. “Mother, I assure you, nothing could be further from the truth!”
“From where I'm standing,” Lady Halmady said coldly, “and from where countless men shall no doubt also be standing at the festival, with wide, salivating mouths, there seems little truth to your claim.”
“At least they're no brothels in Lenayin!” Alythia retorted. “I never even understood what a brothel was until someone who'd travelled to Petrodor explained it to me!”
“You watch your tongue with me, young lady! I'll tolerate none of your highland lip in this house, I warn you!”
“If you have such contempt for highlanders,” said Alythia in exasperation, “then why in the world did you allow your son to marry one?”
Lady Halmady slapped her. Alythia's head snapped about, a cheek and temple stinging. The force of the blow astonished her.
“You do not question the motivations of this family's elders, do you understand me?” The older woman's voice was tight with rage. “You are your husband's servant, and thus a servant of this house. You do not question. You obey. I know that you are a princess. It may seem to you that this family is nothing more than commoners. But let me assure you, young lady, that a noble family of Petrodor is of a vastly higher station than even the royalty of that highland barbarian cesspit could aspire to. You did not marry down, my dear. It is we who married down, I am quite sure.”
Lady Halmady turned and stalked out, her black dress sweeping the polished boards in her wake. Alythia put a hand to her face, her ears still ringing. Selyna and Vansy hurried to her side.
“Oh, M'Lady,” Selyna gasped, “you're bleeding!”
Alythia looked at her fingers and saw that it was true. Lady Halmady wore many rings. Who'd have thought that old lady could wield such a blow? Alythia had little experience in being hit. In fact, she thought dazedly, she'd not been hit since…since that little bitch of a sister Sashandra had given her a right hook at their brother Krystoff's funeral. She'd been hitting everyone, then. That was twelve years ago.
“That will swell up,” Vansy said matter-of-factly. “Look, you can see it swelling now.”
“Swell up?” Alythia felt a wave of panic. She pushed her maids aside and staggered to the mirror, peering close. The cut was as long as a fingernail and, as Vansy had said, already swelling. “Oh that…that horrid old bitch! Look what she's done! I'm going to kill her! All this work for nothing…I can't go to Sadisi like this! Like a sailor straight from a dockside brawl! What will people say?”
“M'Lady,” Selyna ventured in a small voice, “perhaps you should keep your voice down a little…”
“What does it matter?” Alythia fumed. “She can't speak this barbarian tongue anyhow!” She yelled toward the door in Torovan, “She wouldn't learn a single syllable of that heathen monstrosity of a language, it's too far beneath her! She married down, you see! Down into the sewer, down into the swamp! Well how is she such a fucking sophisticate, when I can speak four languages and she can only manage one?”
She stumbled on one thick-heeled sandal in her fury, nearly falling. She tore it off her foot and threw it hard at the door. It hit with a loud crack and fell impotently to the floor.
Family Halmady left for Sadisi Festival without her. Alythia stood and watched through a small, barred window as the carriages left. Hooves clattered between mansion walls, and she caught a glimpse of armed guards hanging off the trailing carriages. Half of the house contingent, and many men from loyal, lower families, would be guarding the family's seniors: Patachi Elmar Halmady (her father-in-law), Lady Halmady, Gregan, brother Vincen and his wife Rovina, younger brother Tristi, little sister Elra and her rag-doll, Topo. The rag-doll got to go. The Lenay princess did not.
There were few good views over neighbouring streets, for defensive purposes. Serrin archers were good shots. Soon Alythia grew tired of peering through the little stone window in Vincen and Rovina's chambers, and went back to her own. But there was nothing to do besides sit
on her bed and sulk.
This year's Sadisi Festival was going to be thrown at the Steiner Mansion. Family Steiner was the wealthiest, most powerful family in Petrodor. Family Halmady liked to style themselves the second-most powerful, but in Petrodor, such things were always debatable. Steiner Mansion was even more grand than Halmady Mansion, and their celebrations and parties were opulent beyond imagining. Such grand events were Alythia's raison d’etre. She loved to socialise. She loved to impress. She loved to be near real power, and feel its warmth radiating through her. She'd been looking forward to this day since she'd first arrived in Petrodor. Now, it was all ruined.
The family would say she was ill. A few might believe it at first, but not later, when the gossip started. Halmady Mansion had many servants, and where there were servants, there was gossip. It had been the same in Baen-Tar. News of the conflict between Lady Halmady and her son's new wife would soon make the rounds. Such conflicts were not uncommon, she'd gathered. No doubt everyone would find it very amusing.
She snorted at the thought and curled her bare feet up on the bed, touching the swelling on her face. It wasn't all bad, she realised. Such gossip could easily hurt Lady Halmady worse than it hurt herself. Men in particular might take the beautiful princess's side before they took that crusty old battle-axe's. Especially if she gave them some extra persuasion. She thought about it for a while, watching the odd firework streak across the bay, and refusing to become too dispirited. She was clever at this kind of thing, she knew she was. It was a puzzle, but all puzzles had a solution.
After a while, she began to wish she hadn't allowed Selyna and Vansy to leave. There was a servants’ party somewhere along the lower slope. They'd volunteered to stay behind and keep her company, but obviously their hearts weren't in it. Alythia couldn't blame them. Both would stay with her in Petrodor for a year to help her settle in. The pay was good, some of which would be sent back to their families in Lenayin. There was also the prospect of a Petrodor husband, one reason both were so eager to attend the Sadisi celebrations. But until that husband arrived, or the year was up and they returned home to Lenayin, they were both very much in the same position that she was-young Lenay women abroad for the first time in their lives, and very often overwhelmed by the foreignness of it all.
They were the lucky ones, though, said a small voice at the back of Alythia's mind. They'd either find a husband and stay here by choice, or they'd get to go home. You're stuck here for life, whether you like it or not.
She shoved the voice aside angrily and jumped from the bed. Damned if she'd sit here and sulk, that was just what the old witch would wish her to do. The night air was lovely in the memory of a hot day. She'd go for a walk.
The gardens of Halmady Mansion were terraced as the slope began to descend. And they were truly beautiful. Alythia walked barefoot on the lush grass, then stepped onto smooth, stone pavings. Trimmed bushes waved their leaves in a cool breeze, and the garden lamps cast gentle shadows across the slope. Water tinkled in a nearby fountain.
Alythia paused behind a garden chair. The lower garden fell away beneath, affording her a clear view over the top of the perimeter wall. At the very bottom, where the dark sea met the shore, the lights burned especially bright. Sounds carried faintly from far below; distant celebrations. The docks were full of rough folk, it was said, and they celebrated accordingly. Rough folk, serrin, and Nasi-Keth. Alythia still thought it odd that the serrin, who had so much wealth, would spend more time near the bottom of the Petrodor Incline than the top. She'd asked some of her new family about it, but none of them had an answer. None of them had ever been to the bottom of the slope, save passing through for the occasional sea voyage. And none of them expressed a desire to ever do so.
The mild air felt lovely on her skin beneath a simple, summer dress. The garden air was alive with fragrances, and the view across the fire-lit curve of Petrodor Harbour was more spectacular than even the most wonderful mountain-view in Lenayin. For a while, her face ceased to ache so badly and her frustrations faded from her mind. This transition in her life was full of challenges, but she would face them and make a good life for herself. All royal women had to go through this. Her second-eldest sister, Petryna, had married to the Lenay province of Yethulyn, where there was considerably less culture and excitement than Petrodor. Her eldest sister, Marya, of course, had married the Heir of Steiner…and would now be happily entertaining at the Sadisi Festival that Alythia was missing. And her littlest sister, Sofy, would soon have to manage an even more difficult transition than this one when she married the heir to Regent Arrosh in Larosa, the most powerful of the Bacosh provinces. Of all her sisters, Alythia was surely the most in her element in a social cacophony like Petrodor. If she could not survive this experience, then no one could.
The soldiers in the garden watched her as she climbed the gentle terraces back toward the house. There were always soldiers on guard these days-men from loyal houses, mostly sons of Patachi Halmady's numerous cousins, their loyalties carefully vetted.
They watched her as she walked, with just the right combination of anxious deference and obvious lust. Alythia smothered a smile and allowed her hips to swing just a little more, within the breezy folds of her dress. Torovan men were a fascinating puzzle of many contradictions. Intensely selfless in their loyal service to higher families, and yet intensely proud, too, of their own heritage. Very protective of their own female family members, and yet (she'd heard) scandalously forward in their lascivious discussions of other men's wives, sisters and daughters. Devoutly Verenthane and pious when it suited them, and yet utterly obsessed with women and sex. It made a young woman who had the gifts and the aptitude for such games feel alive.
The mansion loomed above, four floors of stone walls, segmented windows and sloping, red tile roofs. It was the most beautiful fortress Alythia had ever seen. She walked the smooth, paved patio past another fountain. Rows of columns and arches lined the patio, and she stepped through the main arch into a lamp-lit passage.
The passage opened onto the inner courtyard, a square patio overlooked with balconies on two sides, and windows on two others. About the patio, great ceramic pots with flowering plants, more water features with golden fish and green lilies, and more columns, lit with lamps. A servant hurried past the columns, but otherwise the courtyard was quiet. At least half the household staff were at Sadisi celebrations. With nothing else to do, Alythia picked a direction she'd not yet walked. She would explore.
The direction she chose led to the southern defensive wall, lined with metal spikes. Alythia walked along the wall, glancing up to see guards atop their posts. So strange to think that a house like Halmady Mansion might consider itself vulnerable. And yet she'd heard some hair-raising tales of what Nasi-Keth fighters had done to several great houses in the past. Night Wraiths, the family men called the Nasi-Keth, and sometimes the serrin too. Shadows in the night, bloodthirsty and godless. Some men made the holy sign when they spoke of them.
The path ended in a wooden fence. Alythia peered over the gate, inside was dark. A lattice covering made for a ceiling, overgrown with a grapevine. Alythia reached over the gate and undid the latch. Closing the gate behind, she reached up for the nearest bunch of grapes. She popped one into her mouth and it was delicious. Another bunch hung near and she moved to sample it.
A throaty snarl in the dark was the first hint that she was not alone. Alythia froze, her heart pounding. That sounded like…She turned, very slowly. Two reflective eyes were watching her, not six paces away. The eyes moved and a chain tinkled. A shadow resolved itself. A dog, shaggy and chained. It snarled again, bloodcurdlingly. It was a big dog, too. Alythia had never particularly liked dogs. Now, that sentiment was reconfirmed a thousandfold.
Trying to stop herself from shaking with fear, she began a very slow retreat to the gate. Dogs, she recalled someone in Baen-Tar saying, could smell fear and see it in a person's posture. They reacted to that fear with fear of their own, and aggression. Best no
t to let them see your fear, that person had said. Well, it was too late for that, because she was terrified.
As she reached the gate, she began to hope that she might make it out without getting mauled. Then the dog lunged. Alythia screamed, colliding with the gate as she stumbled backward. The dog's chain pulled tight with a snap, its teeth snarling barely an armspan from her throat. Alythia scrambled along the overgrown fence, then fell on her backside. The dog strained, thrashing and darting, but Alythia was out of its reach.
Running footsteps came up the path and the gate rattled open. A man yelled at the dog, running at it. It backed off, then turned and lunged, only to receive a savage whack from the man's scabbard. It yelped and scrambled to retreat. Another soldier grabbed Alythia by her arm and pulled her out of the gate.
“M'Lady, are you hurt?” Other soldiers were running up, and a few servants. Alythia struggled for breath, her limbs trembling. Her knees felt as though they were about to give way. “M'Lady?” From within the enclosure, there came yells, whacks and yelps as the other soldier meted out some harsh punishment.
“I'm…I'm all right,” she managed, breathlessly. “The chain stopped him short.”
“I'm very sorry, M'Lady,” said the young soldier, gallantly. He seemed most pleased at his successful rescue. “Someone should have warned you about the wolf. It was an oversight. Someone shall be punished for it, I assure you.”
“Wolf?” Alythia blinked at him.
“Yes, M'Lady, it's a wolf. A she-wolf.” The second soldier was emerging now, his sword and scabbard in hand, closing the gate behind him. “It was a gift from a merchant just eight months ago. A beautiful little cub it was then, with big paws and big ears, and soft grey fur. Master Tristi and Mistress Elra were very fond of it and it followed them everywhere.” The soldier's lips twisted with an ironic smile. “But pretty wolf cubs, you know, they soon grow into big wolves.”
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