“Pillari.” He went straight for his brother, and to Liseli’s surprise gave him a hearty bear hug and thump on the back. As they embraced, Pillari’s clothing looked dusty and old in comparison, but Liseli could see now that it was more or less the same style.
“It’s good to see you,” Pillari greeted him warmly, as Arlic released him with another thump. Pillari looked unfazed by the enthusiastic reception, and was even smiling in a way that wasn’t dry, sarcastic, or tight.
“And you, little brother.” Arlic clasped his arm and looked to be in danger of pounding on him again. But he refrained, stepping back and straightening his maroon jacket before smiling with a nod to Martilia. “You look lovely, sister,” he said.
She stepped forward and they exchanged a brief, decorous hug. “And what are these?” Arlic exclaimed, glancing around at Oan, Ivira, Russ and Liseli, “more offspring come to visit?” Ivira ran away and hid behind Halla’s skirt.
“These two are ‘offspring,’ yes,” Martilia said with a smile, as she put a hand on Oan’s head. “We are bringing them to see the festival for the first time.”
“Arlic.” Pillari’s tone changed, lowering importantly, as he motioned to Russ and Liseli. “These are strangers we met with this morning on the journey down. They were . . . lost, and so I have invited them here with us. To meet you.”
“Hi,” they both said at the same time, then glanced at each other fell into awkward silence.
Arlic’s forehead creased in slight confusion, as he looked Russ and Liseli over closer. “Lost . . . I see.” He turned to Pillari with a questioning tilt of his head.
“Very lost. I thought it prudent to lodge them here as one of our own, over the festival,” Pillari talked louder and faster than he had all morning. “It’s something we shall have to discuss later, I’m afraid. I hope it is no trouble to house all these unexpected young guests.”
“Of course, no trouble.” Arlic smiled oddly at Pillari, as if he thought he was crazy, but didn’t care at the moment. “Welcome to Elharan.” He turned to Russ and Liseli. “I’m quite certain that anyone Pillari would agree to accompany is someone I will enjoy becoming acquainted with.”
“Thanks,” Liseli said, while trying to unravel the sentence in her mind.
“Nice to meet you, Sir.” Russ thrust out his right hand, keeping his left in his pocket. Arlic shook his hand, and Liseli wondered if women were supposed to shake hands with men or if that would be a faux pas. She decided not to chance it, and didn’t offer her hand — she’d let him extend his hand if he wanted to. He didn’t, instead bowing his head very slightly before turning back to Pillari.
“You must all be quite tired, come inside,” he said, with another clap on the shoulder for his brother. He led them up the stairs, and they were halfway up when Liseli realized that Arlic had barely even looked at Currun or Halla.
Chapter 8 ~ Elharan, part 2
Once inside the house, they were all whisked away to separate rooms by servants, to “rest before dinner.” Liseli stared around the front hall in awe, trying to take in the lush carpeting, furniture, and artwork that adorned the austere stone walls and floor. But no one seemed interested in giving them a grand tour. She felt overwhelmed and rushed, pushed or pulled by the servants, she couldn’t tell. As they were climbing the grand staircase she realized that the adults were not accompanying them, and it was just Russ, Oan, and Ivira being taken upstairs with her. She was nonplussed that she’d missed the point where they’d parted, and annoyed that they hadn’t said anything to alert her. She must have been too taken up with ogling the fixtures, and she resolved to be more focused.
She felt the urge to grab Russ’s arm, but couldn’t. He was strolling up the stairs ahead of her, with a businesslike young servant girl on one side and Oan on the other. Liseli glanced to her right, at Ivira, and saw that the little girl’s eyes were wide and her lip was trembling. Liseli relaxed a little, and reached out to take her hand. Ivira looked up at her and gripped her hand. “Halla left,” she said, helplessly.
“Her room is probably on a different floor.” Liseli smiled. “Lots of stairs, aren’t there?”
Ivira nodded, and sucked in her lower lip. She looked around mistrustfully. Liseli swung her hand back and forth. “I’ve never been in such a pretty house. And just huge. You know, I’ll bet my house could fit into any one these rooms.” She knew she was exaggerating, big time, but tried to make her tone sound wondrous and excited. Ivira didn’t reply.
At the top of the stairs they parted ways with the children. Ivira was reluctant to release Liseli’s hand — and Liseli was reluctant to release Ivira’s, for that matter — but she was coaxed by the servant, assured that she and her brother were going to be put in a room adjacent to Pillari and Martilia’s. Russ and Liseli were led down a different hall. Two servants remained with them.
One stopped at a door and announced, “This will be your room, Miss,” nodding to Liseli as she reached for the handle. Russ stopped, even though the other servant kept heading down the hall.
“I guess I’ll see you later,” he said.
“Yeah.” Liseli nodded, then stopped and stared at him. In a moment she was going to be alone, not even knowing in what room Russ was hidden. He stared back, apparently thinking the same thing, and they gaped at each other for a moment. The other servant had stopped and was waiting patiently.
“So I’ll see you.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Later.”
“Yeah. See you.”
“Bye.”
Neither of them had moved. The maid was in Liseli’s room, moving around, getting it ready on the shortest of notice. Russ dug his hands into his pockets and shrugged. “Right,” Liseli shook her head. There was no reason to start feeling panicky about being separated. She was twenty years old and she could handle being alone in a strange room with a servant girl. She turned and headed into the room, glancing back at Russ as she shut the door. He craned his neck to see her as the door swung between them, but didn’t take his hands from his pockets or lunge forward or grab the door, or her, to kiss her goodbye. Which was just as well, because she wouldn’t have liked it, but it would have been nice to know he bothered to try.
Liseli walked into the room, looking around. It was large, larger than her living room at home. A four poster bed and nightstand sat against the left wall, a wardrobe stood across from them. There was a tapestry hanging from the back wall, a rich design of curling dark purple, green, and silver lines against black. A cushioned bench ran the length of the wall underneath it. There was no window, which she found vaguely disturbing, but she decided not to let it bother her. She looked to her side and saw a bureau with a mirror and a bench against the hallway wall.
Further into the room, she noticed a door in the wall next to the bureau. “Where does that lead?” she asked.
The servant had been tearing the sheets and blankets off of the bed. She looked, then said, “That is the bathroom. Would you like me to draw you a bath?”
“Yes!” Liseli brightened. “Please! I haven’t showered since . . . a while. A bath would be . . . would be too wonderful for words.”
The servant eyed her mistrustfully, and dropped the blankets. “Very well.”
Liseli followed her, curiously. “The bathroom is shared with the next room, but there is no one in that room at this time,” the maid told her, opening the door. Liseli looked in. It was a small room, with a closet, a wooden bench, and a dresser on one side. A mirror hung on the wall above the dresser, and a basin was set in the top. There was a low rectangular depression in the floor on the other side of the room, and a door in the wall across from hers. Liseli was pleasantly surprised to see that a silver spigot and knobs were lodged in the wall above the bath. Running water; the day is definitely starting to look up.
The servant fiddled with the knobs, and water came out, trickling at first then gaining momentum. Liseli felt silly having the servant do that for her — she could turn knobs herself.
“Thank you . . . um, what’s your name?”
“Anya.” The girl straightened and watched the water flow.
“Thanks, Anya.”
Anya nodded, and moved to the drawers under the basin. She pointed to various compartments and listed their contents; towels, soaps, lotions, powders, oils, combs, etc. Liseli nodded, then asked, “What’s in the closet?”
Anya gave her a strange look and said, “That is the water closet.”
“Oh, right.” Thank God.
“If you would like a change of clothing, that can be provided,” Anya said, moving over to the tub to turn the water off.
“Thanks.” Liseli tugged self-consciously at the bottom of her shirt, which was grass stained, wrinkled, and probably smelled. Anya just nodded again as she walked out of the room, closing the door behind her.
* * *
Russ was afraid for a moment that the servant in his room was sent to murder him. He had been deserted by the girl who had showed him to his room; she had looked him over with obvious distaste, and told him that she would draw a bath and send in a man with a new set of clothes for him. She’d sniffed pointedly as she said this. There was no declining the offer.
When the man came in he entered the bathroom without knocking, startling Russ, who sent water sloshing over the floor in a quick effort to preserve a little privacy. The servant had a pile of clothes in one arm, and held a wicked looking blade in the other hand. He looked down on Russ cowering in the tub, and said solemnly, “I thought you might like a shave, sir.”
“Okay,” Russ agreed hastily, though he hadn’t really been contemplating it. The servant nodded and moved over to the bench. He set the clothes down, then turned back.
“Is the water warm enough, sir?”
“Yes,” Russ bit off the word.
“Would you like me to shave you or would you rather do it yourself?”
“You know, I think I can shave myself.”
The man nodded, the testy tone of voice apparently lost on him. “Is there anything else you would like?”
“No thanks.”
“Very well. I will come for you when it is time for dinner.”
“Right. You do that.”
The man finally left, and Russ exhaled. He didn’t understand why anyone would want to have personal servants to help them bathe, dress, shave, and crap.
He didn’t know why he went ahead and used the razor. He didn’t mind the stubble, it made him look older. But there the blade was, waiting for him to use, and he’d said he would do it. And anyway, whenever he had come into work unshaven Liseli would threaten to shave him with a potato peeler (which he wouldn’t actually mind as much as she thought he would), so he picked it up warily and turned it over, inspecting it. He found some suspiciously flowery scented cream in one of the drawers. He thought about Liseli as he stared at himself in the mirror. He thought about her some more as he sniffed the flower cream and smeared it on his face. And, for variety, he thought about her as he scraped himself with the surprisingly . . . amazingly . . . fucking sharp . . . blade.
He wondered if she had servants barging in on her while she was trying to take a bath. Offering to shave her. Ow, dammit. Liseli bathing. Or shaving her legs. That was an interesting thing to picture. Not right now, though, unless he wanted to cut his throat. Liseli cutting my throat. With a potato peeler. Ha, ha.
When he was done shaving, and sopping up the blood, and getting dressed in the black clothes (apparently black was big in Elharan) he decided that he was too restless to wait around for a call to dinner. At the far end of the room hung floor-length curtains, and he was curious to see what they covered. He parted them, finding himself staring out a pair of glass doors at a balcony. He pushed open the doors and went outside, looking around. A flight of stairs ran down against the wall to his left, and the balcony ran along the length of the house to his right. Below the balcony was a large garden . . . . Hell, it was a park. Full grown trees and bushes lined curving stone walkways, and he could see open buildings . . . gazebos or whatever they were called . . . . Liseli would love this. It looked like something from on PBS.
Why not? He knew where her room was; it was just down the hallway from his. He’d been glad when he realized that they weren’t all that far removed from each other. Russ turned and went back into his room. He checked himself in the mirror above the bureau. He’d rubbed his hair dry with a towel and left it that way, and he thought that maybe he should comb it. Nah. She probably wouldn’t recognize him if he did, especially what with the black shirt and pants. He actually didn’t look half horrible in black . . . .
Her room was several doors down from his, and they all looked the same, but he remembered exactly which one was hers. He knocked, and waited. Silence. He knocked again, beginning to doubt his memory. “Liseli?”
The door opened. Liseli peered up at him. “What?” she asked, looking slightly annoyed. Her hair was loose and damp around her shoulders, the ends curling down around her midsection. She was wearing a blue robe, holding it closed, and her feet poked out bare underneath it. His mind went blank. She paused to give him a closer look and said, “Huh . . . . You look . . . interesting.”
He grabbed his shirt self-consciously. “This is what they gave me. You don’t like it?”
“I . . . well . . . you look kind of like something from a . . . weird modernist . . . painting.” She wrinkled her nose as she tilted her head to the side. “But anyway, what do you want?”
“Oh. I . . . saw there’s a . . . a garden here.” He pointed down the hallway.
“That’s nice.”
“And I just . . . thought . . . you might wanna walk around it. It’s big.”
“Right. Yeah.” Liseli shook her head. “Well, I’ve been doing a lot of walking, lately, Russell, and so I think I’ll pass.”
“Oh.” Shit, you moron.
“Where are you?”
“What?”
She sighed. “Your room. Where did they put you?”
“Oh, it’s right down the hallway—” he continue to point, “—at the very end. Opposite side. It’s right next to the garden. There’s a balcony, out the doors.”
“Okay. That’s nice.” She nodded, pulling the robe tighter around her. “So you go walk around the garden, or something. I’m going to sleep until dinner.”
“Alright.”
She leaned forward. “Why do you smell like perfume?”
“Cream,” he corrected her.
“Uh-huuuh . . . your throat is bleeding.” She reached up and wiped at the underside of his jaw with the tips of her fingers, drawing them back red.
“I . . . cut . . . myself . . . ” he said thickly, putting a hand on the doorframe for support.
“Tch,” she rubbed her fingers together, for lack of a place to wipe them off on. “Well . . . don’t let it run down onto your clothes. You should probably stick some cotton in it or something.”
“I’ll go do that,” he gasped, turning away quickly.
“Russ.”
“What?” He stopped, looking back.
She was leaning out into the hall. The robe fell open a little and revealed part of her leg. “If you find out anything interesting while you’re out . . . exploring . . . tell me about it later, okay?”
“Okay.”
She ducked back in and shut the door.
You are an idiot, Russell J. Markson. You are going to go walk around a stupid, fucking, garden. You loser, moron. Turn around. Turn around and open her door. Without knocking? Yes. He could feel blood trickling down his throat. He could still feel her fingers brushing the wound. Oh damn. Damn it. I can’t do it. He shook his head, then banged the heel of his hand against it a couple times. What he really needed was some fresh air. Right. Time to explore. Find out something interesting. Report back to Liseli after her nap. Right.
* * *
Inside her room, Liseli walked over to the bed and looked down at it. A real bed. And she was going to sleep forever. Or at least un
til Anya came and told her it was time to get ready for dinner. She crawled onto it and sprawled out, pressing her face into the soft blankets. It was heaven. Her own bed wasn’t this comfortable. Not nearly.
After a moment she began to giggle into the bed. Russ had looked like he was going to faint when she pointed out that he was bleeding. He’d looked as if he’d never seen his own blood before. His eyes had bugged out when she rubbed it around on her fingers. You’d think he’d sliced his jugular. Men are such wimps. She smiled, sighed affectionately, and drifted off to sleep.
Later she dreamed that a woman who looked like Halla, but who was not Halla, came walking up to her holding a giant knife in one hand and a severed fist in the other. She lifted the knife and cut off both of Liseli’s hands, and Liseli thanked her.
Chapter 9 ~ Eliasha
A weird modernist painting? Russ wasn’t even sure what that meant, but if the servants had left him his real clothes, he would have changed back into them before going outside. But he couldn’t; they’d taken his clothes away . . . maybe they were washing them, or burning them, or making a little voodoo doll of him to stick needles in. There was nothing he could do about it now.
He latched the doors shut behind him and ambled down the stairs. It was nice in the garden, nicer than trudging through a forest or through a field. Liseli didn’t know what she was missing. He would have stuck his hands in his pockets as he went, but there were no pockets in the pants. Useless. The shirt was okay, but he hoped he’d at least get his jeans back in one piece.
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