"That's a lot to ask of a newlywed woman whose father died not half a year ago, whose mother abandoned her after leaving her little sister to be driven mad…" Elise trailed off, sputtering.
"But," Aurella replied, "that is what is expected of a princess. Just wait until Sapphire is queen. Hawk Haven's last queen was our founder, Zorana the Great. Sapphire will have to live up to a hundred years and more of exaggeration and legend."
"I am so glad," Elise said, "that King Tedric didn't choose me."
Ivon surprised her with his reply.
"And I am glad he didn't choose me, either."
ELISE'S DEPARTURE WAS DELAYED a full day owing to rain that began that evening and continued through the next morning. Baron Archer ruled that giving the roads a day to drink the water was only wise.
For the same reason, she didn't take a carriage when she left, riding instead on Cream Delight, the elegant golden-coated, silver-maned mare that had been her parents' gift the autumn before. Baron Archer delegated trusted attendants to manage the remounts and the pack animals, and to protect Elise and Ninette on their journey.
Having judged that the level of local rumor was verging on dangerous, Aurella elected to remain behind for a few days, employing her time regulating the mood of the estate while Baron Archer himself rode about his lands, spreading the king's news.
Elise reached Eagle's Nest six wet and muddy days later. In good weather the trip might have been made in half the time, but the roads were sticky and the people she met along the way so eager for news and reassurance that Elise felt herself honor bound to remain longer than planned at her various stops.
Indeed, rumor was so pervasive and so colorful that Elise wondered if, secrecy being no longer possible, Melina might have viewed the opposite as her best servant.
It was certainly possible.
ELISE WAS INVITED to Eagle's Nest Castle the very day of her arrival, but the invitation was for the following day, "in order that you have opportunity to recover from the rigors of your journey."
In truth, she was glad for that opportunity. Although Baron Archer had taken care that Elise not lose the hardiness she had developed during her journey to New Kelvin, the fact was this was the first multiday ride she had taken since the previous Wolf Moon. The journey to Eagle's Nest had been easy enough. They had slept at inns or at the residences of families proud and honored to have the heir of the Archer Barony under their roof. Still, Elise was tender in muscles she had forgotten existed.
Ninette, for whom a far greater time had passed since she had made such a tripùwinter journeys were commonly by sled or sleigh and summer made in carriagesùwas in visible pain. Elise insisted that one of the resident maids in the Archer manse in Eagle's Nest be assigned to Ninette and that she could take care of herself.
Ninette protested, but weakly, and since the staff of the Archer manse would no more let their young lady wait upon herself than run naked through the streets, the matter was settled by the housekeeper delegating herself to attend on Elise.
This proved opportune. Although Steward Dayle wasn't precisely a scandalmonger, her interpretation of her duties did involve mingling with many levels of society. This might not have been the case. Many stewards would have decided dealing with merchants and menials beneath them, but Steward Dayle's kingdom was a small one and so nothing escaped her notice.
Technically, Dayle shared her administration with the butler, who in addition to the wine cellar was responsible for matters of protocol and such. However, as this worthy traveled back and forth between the Archer Grant and Eagle's Nest, usually in company with either the baron or his lady wife, Dayle's authority was absolute among those who must cater to her whims, no matter where the owners of the property might be residing.
Elise decided to find out if the rumors here in the capital were as vicious as in the provinces or if the relative sophistication of Eagle's Nest's residents had moderated their views. She didn't open with that subject, of course. Indirection and playing at politics were far more natural to her than riding a horse or shooting a bow.
Instead they chatted for a while about local news: this one's new baby, that one's engagement, another's marriage celebration. This last topic was arrived at naturally enough. Spring began the new year in the calendar used by Hawk Haven and Bright Bay alike, and weddings were traditionally celebrated thenùespecially among the upper classes, who didn't need to worry that a spring wedding might mean a bride heavy with child during the lean months of winter.
"And what a tale," Elise said, "this is about what Melina once of Shield has done! Do you really believe that she could have married a foreign king?"
Dayle was clearly torn between a desire to speak her mind and the respect accorded to the doings of the upper class. She gave into the former notion, doubtless encouraged by the fact that Melina was exiled both from her homeland and from her family, and so not due any deference at all.
"I think it's frightening," she said bluntly. "I never liked that woman, didn't care for it at all when you were engaged to that son of hers."
Elise reflected and decided that Dayle was being honest. There had been a certain degree of stiffness in the congratulations she had offered and in the hospitality that she had offered Jet when he came by the Archer home. At the time, blinded by her own infatuation, Elise had dismissed thisùif she had noticed at allùas the older woman's awkwardness in acknowledging that a girl she had known since infancy was grown into a young lady.
"I'm glad to be free of Melina, too," Elise said, "but what is there to fear now? She's across the White Water River and miles further inland. The rulers of New Kelvin live in a city in the foothills of the Sword of Kelvin Mountains, far from us."
"And wouldn't you just know that, lamb," Dayle said, her fingers lightly stroking the front of Elise's head, where the hair was still markedly shorter than the long, pale gold curtain that fell to the middle of her back. "Having gone among those barbarians and even taken on their strange ways. I nearly wept when I saw you when your family came here for Winter Fest, I don't mind saying."
Elise didn't bother correcting the steward. The fact was that no one in New Kelvin had made her cut her hair. She had done it herself in order to go disguised into Thendulla Lypella, the Earth Spires, where the rulers of New Kelvin lived and worked.
As the fashion in New Kelvin was to shave the front portion of the head and wear a long braid behind, there had been no other way to pass. Elise understood that the custom had grown up in order to permit the wild face paints favored by the New Kelvineseùpaints worn in addition to numerous tattoosùto be seen. More practically, it meant that the wearer's hair did not become streaked and matted with paint.
Instead of correcting Dayle's impression, Elise decided to probe the steward's evident aversion to the New Kelvineseùan aversion Elise did not recall encountering during the family's winter visit.
"Barbarians?" she asked, careful to sound curious rather than critical. "Surely people who have the skills of the New Kelvinese can't be called barbarians."
"Well, maybe that's not the right word," Dayle replied, doing up Elise's braid rather more tightly than was comfortable. "But I don't care how fine their glasswork is nor how lovely their carpets, a people who worship the magical arts like they doùwell, I call that barbaric."
"I see." Elise nodded, pretended to study her reflection. "Dayle, would you mind undoing my hair? I think I'd like a ribbon or two worked into the braid."
Dayle complied cheerfully enough, and when she went to work again she didn't pull nearly as hard. However, clearly her thoughts were running on the same track.
"This ribbon," she said, "New Kelvinese silk it is. Tell me, Lady Elise, do they really raise the silk by natural means? Recently, I heard someone say that it's woven by monstrous spiders that they feed on human blood."
"The truth's hardly prettier," Elise said with a laugh. "I did learn a bit about the artùthey call it sericultureùwhile we were there. Our landlady, Hasamemorri,
had done something related to the work."
"No giant spiders, then?" Dayle sounded almost disappointed.
"No, rather caterpillars. The silkworm, as they call it, spins the thread for its cocoon. The humans harvest them. It's fairly difficult. Apparently, the silkworm loves a warmer climate from somewhere in the Old Country, but the New Kelvinese use their glass houses and the heat from underground fires…"
Elise frowned, "Remember, I'm not sure just how they do it, only what Hasamemorri told us."
"Quite right," Dayle said encouragingly. "So they use these glass houses and the underground fires…"
"To make a place warm enough that the silkworms think they're at home. They grow plants to feed the caterpillars, too, special ones. Silk is a major industry for the New Kelvinese in all its parts, from the glass and plants, to the caring for the silkworms, and then the actual dying and weaving of the silk."
"But no giant spiders," Dayle said. She sounded almost sad. "I guess that there's no truth to the stories that New Kelvin is making closer trade with Waterland then."
"With Waterland?" Elise tried not to sound too eager.
"That's what I heard," Dayle said, almost embarrassed. "The one who told me said it was on account of the spiders, you see. Those Waterlanders keep slaves, you know."
Elise nodded.
"And from what I heard, the New Kelvinese were going to raise their silk production and for that they needed more blood for the spiders so they were making trade overtures to Waterland."
"That's interesting," Elise said. "Who told you about the spiders?"
"Well…" Dayle considered. "I've heard that tale since I was small. My mother used to ask me why I wanted silk, given how it was grown."
Elise raised her eyebrows.
"I never heard such stories!"
"Well"ùDayle smiled indulgentlyù"maybe now your lady mother didn't need to persuade you that you didn't want silk ribbons and maybe she didn't want you refusing to wear them if you did know, given how much some noble folk judge by a dress or the like."
There was a certain logic in that, but Elise didn't pursue it. After all, she knewùor at least she thought she knewùthat silk didn't come from giant spiders that fed on human blood.
"But Waterland," Elise persisted. "Did your mother tell you about that?"
"Gracious, no!" Dayle said. "Mother has been with the ancestors three years now. Summer fever took her. I heard about the trade with Waterland just a few market days ago from the fishmonger."
"The fishmonger?"
"That's right. He was saying that it should be a good year for saltwater fish if the Waterlanders were going to be selling their slaves to New Kelvin. It would mean they wouldn't be building so many ships and such to put to sea.
"Wishful thinking, I thought," Dayle continued, finishing Elise's coiffure. "After all, if they're making money selling slaves to New Kelvin, wouldn't they have more money for buying ships?"
Depends on who's building them and where they get their timber and a dozen other factors, Elise thought.
The economics of international trade was something of a hobby with her, but she didn't plan to get into a discussion of its complexity with Dayle. Enough that here was a new rumor. She stored it away to bring to King Tedric.
She didn't have much time to brood. Soon after Elise was finished with her breakfast, Dayle arrived to announce that Elise's grandmother Grand Duchess Rosene wanted to see her.
"She's in the front parlor," Dayle said nervously.
"I will see her immediately, Steward," Elise replied. "Send in a maid with cool drinks. There will be no need for her to remain. I will wait on my grandmother."
Grand Duchess Rosene was the younger sister of King Tedric, a haughty lady, who never let anyone forget her birth. Sometimes Elise wondered how Rosene had become this way, for once she had been so young and romantic and indifferent to place and title that she had married a man commoner-born, though elevated by his deeds to the rank of baron by King Chalmer, Rosene's father.
But that girl was long gone and the seemingly frail white-haired woman of seventy who waited for Elise in the parlor bore no trace of her. Indeed, she seemed to have no desire to recall those days and rather than residing with either of her children and their families, she lived in the suite of rooms in Eagle's Nest Castle which had been given to her upon her marriage.
Elise made a deep curtsy to her grandmother, then knelt for the old woman's embrace. Grand Duchess Rosene smelled of the rose sachet tucked in her bodice and of peppermint. From the latter, Elise deduced that her grandmother's indigestion had been acting up again, and readied herself for a lecture. Nor was she disappointed.
"I understand that you have been summoned to the castle tomorrow," the grand duchess began, "and thought to see you before Tedric could fill your head with foolish notions."
"Ma'am," Elise murmured, at a loss how to respond.
"I can't imagine that Tedric wants to talk to you about playing nursemaid to that child his heir is bearing," Rosene said. "Even if he considered it, you can't imagine the number of well-born young ladies who seem to thinkùor whose parents seem to thinkùthat they are just perfect for the post. Why choose them or you? Better some big-breasted country wench with milk, I say. Benefit the child and make the common folk preen."
Elise sat mute. All she could gather from this was that the grand duchess had no notion why her granddaughter was summoned before the king and that she was burning to know. Surely she would have tried King Tedric first. Rosene was no respecter of her brother's august position. Therefore, if he hadn't told his sister, it was up to Elise to do so.
After all, hadn't the king's letter said she wasn't to hide her reason for coming to him? He must have some reason for wanting Elise to do the telling. Maybe he thought it would gain her respect in her grandmother's eyes. Maybe he was just fed up with his sister's nagging and prying.
"Well, Grandmother," Elise replied, "the king's letter said that he wished to ask me about New Kelvin. That's all I know."
Grandmother Rosene snorted, quite unladylike.
"New Kelvin!" she said. "As if he doesn't have advisors who could tell him better than some chit of a girl."
Elise bit the inside of her lip to keep from an unladylike retort. After all, she did speak the New Kelvinese languageùas most Hawk Havenese did not. She had been to New Kelvin as recently as the previous winter. She had met one of the advisors to the Dragon Speaker, and had even been within Thendulla Lypella itself.
The grand duchess was having nothing of meek silence, however.
"Well?" Rosene said in a way that demanded a response of some kind, even if Elise wasn't quite certain of the question.
"I did visit New Kelvin," Elise began.
"You did indeed," Grand Duchess Rosene retorted as if Elise had said something rude. "As I see it, child, you are getting completely out of hand. First you finagle that engagement to that utterly unsuitable Jet Shield."
Elise forbore from saying that for a time that engagement had definitely made her Grandmother Rosene's favorite among her five grandchildren.
"Then you go tearing off to war, hanging about the soldiers like some camp follower."
That accusation was harder to swallow. Elise, like Ivon, his sister Zorana, and her son Purcel, had accompanied King Tedric at Rosene's express commandùno matter that Ivon and Purcel, at least, would have gone anyway, holding as they did commissions in the army. Everyone had resided in the camps except for the king himself.
"Then last winter you shame both your own family and Duchess Norwood by forsaking her hospitality and gallivanting off to a foreign country without your chaperon and with several unmarried men."
Elise refrained from biting her lip, but she did grind her teeth, just a little. Rosene was completely accurate in what she said. It was just how she said it. For a moment Elise thought about mentioning that there had been a perfectly respectable chaperon along, then surrendered the point unspoken. None of this was what bother
ed the grand duchess. What bothered Rosene was that she sensed she was losing control of her family.
"Yes, Grandmother?" was all Elise could think to say when the grand duchess paused and sat, obviously waiting for a response.
"What do you mean, 'Yes, Grandmother'? Yes, Grandmother, I've gotten completely out of hand?"
"If you say I have," Elise replied with a slight shrug, "I must have done so. My parents seem resigned to me, however."
"Your parents," Rosene said, "have resigned themselves to the fact that you are their only child. Well, I plan to do something about that."
Elise blinked. This last was beyond her. Aurella was sterile. Ivon was too much a gentleman to divorce his wifeùespecially since she had produced a living heir. Besides that, Elise thought that in his formal way Ivon was fond of Aurella.
"Yes," Rosene continued. "I have been thinking. Your father and mother have only one childùyouùand you have taken to doing dangerous and unpredictable things. Therefore, I am going to insist that your parents adopt one of your aunt Zorana's children. With Purcel's death, Nydia is now the heir. That leaves Deste and Kenre. It would be too much to ask Zorana to surrender both of her sons. Therefore, it will have to be Deste. She's young…"
"Thirteen," Elise supplied automatically.
"But her youth is in her favor. Ivon will have a chance to undertake her training. I understand Deste takes after her mother in her use of a bow…"
This last was said slyly, so that Elise knew it was meantùas it didùto sting. It also told her that this entire conversation was meant to sting, meant to warn Elise that she was not irreplaceable.
Instead of reacting as she suspected Grandmother Rosene intended, by angrily attacking her right to meddle with her son's family, Elise managed a calm smile. It took almost more strength than she possessed to keep her voice level as well.
"You have a good point, Grandmother," she said. "I had always thought that if something happened to me, then Aunt Zorana's eldest would take my place if she did not herself, but you are right. After all, are you not merely following your brother's example by securing the line through adoption?"
The Dragon of Despair Page 12
