Rafen (The Fledgling Account Book 1)

by Y. K. Willemse

  This had to be a trap. Annette had likely sent Bertilde into the hall to coax information out of Rafen. Well, it wasn’t going to work.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rafen said, his tone flat and uninterested.

  “Oh, dear,” Bertilde said, with an enormous sigh. “People always say that to me. I don’t ever make sense, dearest Rafen, or Peton, or was it Peverall? I have a horrible memory too, please don’t mind me. Tell me when I’m not making sense, won’t you? Oh, but you just did, didn’t you?”

  Rafen was feeling very hot. “You’re not tricking me. I’m not telling you anything!” he bellowed in his strong Tarhian accent.

  Bertilde started violently. “Oh, Peverall.” Her face crumpled in much the same way her father’s did when he was upset. “I’m so very sorry, I didn’t mean to o-offend you…” She hiccupped and promptly burst into tears.

  Rafen stared, his conscience prickling. “No, I am sorry. I did not mean to shout. Really.”

  He stepped a little closer to Bertilde and reached out gingerly to take her hand. She rushed forward and enveloped him. Rafen squirmed and gasped, looking around desperately for escape as she embraced him.

  Withdrawing after what felt like forever, Bertilde looked up, her bright blue eyes meeting his. Tears trembled on the lower lids. She cleared her throat. “What did you mean before? When you said—”

  “Nothing,” Rafen said. “I didn’t know what I was talking about.”

  “Oh.” Bertilde brightened. “So you have that problem too?”

  “I - I suppose.”

  “How comforting,” Bertilde said, laughing. “You know something, Peverall? I like you.”

  Rafen looked at her, lost for words.

  *

  “We have provided you with a bed, a room, blankets, and pillows,” Queen Arlene said, checking everything against a parchment while Rafen looked around the sitting room of her large private wing in the palace.

  Intricately carved with the runes Rafen could read, two large pillars stood in the center of the wing. What Bertilde called “settees”, in rustic reds and dark browns, lined the walls. The sun streamed through the high open window to his right. Beyond it, the terraced inner walls and outer walls of the palace were visible. Bushes with large berries like jewels speckled the land down the rise on which the palace stood, and the hills pulsed before the ominous white-capped mountains to the south. Rafen’s breath caught in his chest as he gazed at them.

  “And of course a sword.”

  “A sword?”

  “It was Alexander’s special request. He hopes you shall continue learning to fence. General Jacob Aneurin will provide you with the sword when he is back from his campaign. You must go to him two weeks from today in the evening. You’ll find him in the armory.”

  Rafen faced her. “Thank you.”

  A rare smile on her face, Queen Arlene glided over to him from the wooden archway connecting her sitting room and library. She paused near Rafen, waiting for him to elaborate.

  Rafen dropped his gaze. He couldn’t express it.

  Before he had been summoned to Queen Arlene’s wing, Bertilde had shown him various rooms of the palace, prattling continuously. While she had chattered on, Rafen had started to relax, and it had frightened him. For ten years, he had nudged himself into a kind of wary tension every day, every hour. Now he had turned around and around, and no one was barking his number, no one was there to shove him into the dirt and dust of the bleak mine, no one was leaning over him with a whip, no one was pointing a pistol at him… He had looked for the dead, and there was Bertilde, shining like a buttercup.

  “You are most welcome.”

  Queen Arlene’s even words calmed him. Rafen breathed more freely. She understood. She offered him her gloved hand. Rafen didn’t know what to do with it, so he let it hang there.

  Arlene’s hand dropped to her side again. “I should not have neglected to teach you that. When thanking a member of the royal family, it is correct etiquette to kiss the proffered hand,” she told him. “We will overlook it this time. We are glad to have you with us. I trust my husband informed you that your presence would gratify him at our meals?”

  Rafen nodded.

  “Good. And you will be there tonight, I assume?”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Dining

  With the Selsons

  Reflected in the glimmering, white marble floor, Rafen stood in the double doorway of the cavernous banquet hall. Wooden rafters stretched across the ceiling far above. The hundreds of candles on the glittering chandeliers were lit, illuminating the fifty long wooden tables that filled the hall. The wall to the left was comprised of huge, arched windows that overlooked the darkening gardens within the palace’s inner walls.

  “Do you like it?” Bertilde asked, standing beside him.

  “It is so big,” Rafen murmured.

  “Hmm,” Bertilde said. “It’s rather cozy. Uncle Albert’s banquet hall – now that would be big.”

  Bertilde led him to the rune-engraved table in the center of the hall. High-backed chairs were pulled up on all sides of it.

  “This is the table we always eat at,” she said, “even when there’s a banquet, which there often is. Father simply loves a feast! Musicians play, the minstrels sing, and there are many, many lords and ladies and philosophers who talk mostly about what they are doing in Sarient or about the kesmalic properties of thyme. Tonight we’re not having a banquet,” she sighed, “because Father’s only just come home, and he says he doesn’t want to see anyone, which is simply not like him, Peverall. I expect he’s making sure things are safe for Etana. Robert says he must be terrified she’ll get captured again. I can’t say I missed her when she was captured though, because we’re always at separate lessons. But I’m glad, for Zion’s sake, that she’s back. We must all be glad.”

  Rafen nodded, inwardly marveling how anyone could not miss Etana. Running his fingers over the table, he wondered what kind of wood it was, and where that wood was from. He had glimpsed the forest near New Isles in the distance that day. Imagine so many trees, altogether at once! The palace gardens were already miraculous to him.

  “I tried to make Etana tell me what happened in Tarhia. She said she’d rather not remember,” Bertilde said. “I simply don’t understand why Talmon captured Etana. It wasn’t very nice of him. Father always used to speak highly of Talmon and called him organized and intelligent and polite.”

  Rafen turned to Bertilde, eyes narrowed. “Talmon is an animal. He deserves to lie in his own blood.”

  “Well, yes,” Bertilde said, looking nervous. “I daresay, Peverall. It was horrid of him to break faith with us all and snatch Etana.”

  “Has your sister Annette ever been to Tarhia?”

  “Oh,” Bertilde quavered, “well, yes. But that was when she was fourteen –eleven or twelve years ago! I don’t think she thinks about it much.”

  Footsteps clattered through the double doorway behind Rafen and Bertilde. They turned. The Selson children approached – if they could be called children. Etana was the second youngest, Rafen had discovered. She was eleven.

  Eighteen and sixteen respectively, Robert and Kasper strode through the wide paths between tables. Bambi paraded behind them, sticking out her stomach.

  “Make way for Her Highness, make way!” she squawked.

  “Bertilde’s friend,” Kasper said, crashing down on a chair at the table, “did you know I can sustain a burp for a whole minute?”

  Rafen narrowed his eyes at the question. He could barely understand Kasper’s Tongue. Though all the Sianians had a clear, clipped accent, Kasper’s was particularly striking.

  “Well, if you can’t take a joke…” Kasper said, slumping somewhat.

  “How are you, Rafen?” Robert asked, seating himself beside Kasper. “I hope you’ve not been waiting long. You were escorted here, weren’t you?”

  “I escorted him,” Bertilde said, “and his name isn’t Rafen. It
’s Peverall.”

  “Don’t be absurd,” Robert told her patronizingly. “I suppose you missed Father’s little family conference today. He said Rafen’s name is Rafen and not Peverall, and that we mustn’t speak to other people about him. Not even the servants, unless it’s the maid that furnishes Rafen’s room.”

  “Why did you say your name wasn’t Rafen?” Bertilde said to Rafen.

  “Was Annette at the conference?” Rafen anxiously questioned Robert.

  “Of course,” Robert said. “She’s part of the family.”

  Rafen glanced back at the doors of the banquet hall, expecting Annette to appear triumphantly.

  “I’m part of the family,” Bertilde said, “and I wasn’t there. Oh dear, I must have completely missed it. I hope Father isn’t angry.”

  “He isn’t,” Kasper put in, winking. “He knows your head is full of air.”

  “Anyhow,” Robert said, “it is a pleasure to meet you, Rafen. I speak for all of us.”

  He held out his long-fingered hand to Rafen. Rafen stared. Do I kiss it? But it’s a man!

  Bertilde giggled, and Rafen flushed.

  “You’re supposed to shake it,” Bambi said, now beside him. “Like this, silly.” She grabbed Rafen’s hand, which Rafen promptly snatched back.

  “Don’t be rude, Bambi,” Robert reprimanded her. “For pity’s sake, he’s in a strange country. He probably doesn’t know how to behave.”

  “Don’t they shake hands in Tarhia?” Kasper asked with a wide grin across his pale, freckled face. “Tarhia must be such a droll place.”

  “Do have a seat, Rafen.” Bertilde gestured a place near her. Bambi threw herself down on a chair opposite them.

  “What’s Tarhia like?” she asked. “Father said it’s humid, and they eat funny food, and they’re very clever.”

  Rafen stared at the runes on the table. How come nobody knew how bad things were in Tarhia? Torius would have fixed them all.

  “Where did you live in Tarhia?” Kasper inquired. “I was considering traveling there myself sometime and studying under one of the philosophers.”

  “You would risk your life going there now,” Robert said sharply.

  Kasper shrugged, indifferent.

  “Do not go,” Rafen said.

  “Well, where did you live, old fellow?”

  Rafen wished the meal would start. “In a cell,” he said shortly. “That is where Talmon would put you too.”

  “Oh,” Kasper said.

  “You shouldn’t have asked,” Robert told him.

  Footsteps sounded from the double doors again. Everyone on Rafen’s side of the table looked over their shoulders to see King Robert and Queen Arlene enter. King Robert smiled when he saw Rafen.

  “Ah,” he said. “How are you finding my humble abode?”

  “You never told us Rafen lived in a cell in Tarhia,” Bambi said accusingly.

  Queen Arlene lowered herself onto a chair opposite Rafen, staring coldly at Bambi.

  “Please, Bambi,” King Robert said, “I don’t believe our guest wishes to talk about his… er… accommodation in Tarhia.”

  He collapsed onto a chair beside Queen Arlene, who looked like she violently wished to be somewhere else.

  “You could take a chair at the head of the table,” she suggested.

  “I like to be with you, my dear.”

  Queen Arlene raised an eyebrow.

  “I want food,” Bambi said to no one in particular.

  Robert and Kasper were quietly discussing the differences between Sianian and Tarhian philosophers. Bambi slammed her fists on the table.

  “I want food!” she shouted.

  “Bambi,” King Robert said with a patient sigh. “We have a kitchen at the front of this hall. Servants work in there day and night. You will get food.”

  Rafen stared at her. She knew the food was coming. In Tarhia, they didn’t know if it would ever come.

  Why can’t I forget it?

  “You behave like a churl,” Queen Arlene said, and Rafen thought she was speaking to him for a minute.

  Bambi blushed.

  “Come, come, Arlene,” King Robert said. “We do not have churls for children. Look at how Robert and Kasper have turned out. Well, Robert anyway. And Annette! A real example of noble behavior.”

  “Noble or not,” Robert said from beside Kasper, who was restraining a laugh at the idea that he had not ‘turned out’ quite right, “she does not deign to join us for meals often.”

  “The servants are late,” King Robert said quickly to Queen Arlene, tracing the large rune in the center of the table with his wide index finger. When Rafen gazed at the symbol, its translation slipped into his mind: Feni, phoenix.

  Annette swept to her seat at one end of the table and Rafen’s heart sank. He hunched lower on his chair, wishing he were invisible.

  “I thought you took your meals privately now, Annette,” King Robert said. “Nice of you to join us tonight. Very nice indeed.”

  “I couldn’t bear missing out on the… fellowship.” Her eyes flicked to Rafen’s.

  Rafen turned away. King Robert’s brow furrowed.

  “Where is Etana?” he asked.

  “Trying to do kesmal probably,” Bambi said. “For a Secra, she’s so very—”

  “Thank you, Bambi,” Queen Arlene cut across her.

  “Your sister returned only today,” King Robert said. “I cannot understand what is the matter with some of you.”

  Someone ran across the floor behind them. Etana slipped into her seat at the opposite end from Annette.

  “Dinner is at six,” King Robert chided gently. “Six, Etana. A king cannot be late. Neither should the future queen be late.”

  Etana dropped her head, reddening as Bambi cleared her throat meaningfully and Annette sniffed in contempt. Rafen decided to always be punctual for dinner.

  The doors at the front of the banquet hall opened, and a dozen servants filed out. They bore trenchers of steaming chicken and crackling pig stuffed with shavings of carrots and mashed lentils; platters of sweetmeats and honeyed bread; bowls of deep red and purple salads; tureens of pale green soup; and crocks filled with simmering compotes of milk, almonds, and apricots. Rafen inhaled deeply.

  “Many apologies to His Majesty,” the head servant began. “We request His Majesty’s forgiveness for the delay. May Your Majesty, the venerable, the honorable, the praiseworthy, the—”

  “Put the food on the table,” King Robert huffed.

  The servants laid the food on the table, set the plates, and left to get the wine.

  King Robert rose. “And now for the blessing,” he said. Annette gave a sidelong look of boredom with her pale green eyes. “Náye Zion mikiny sè elest uki waior qanluai. Náye sauh margai ra u xremedu bou wai. Maneen náye ha ra.”

  May Zion bless this food to our bodies. May his wings be a refuge for us. So let it be.

  With all the runes around him now, Rafen had become used to his instinctive understanding of Phoenix Tongue. However, he had decided not to reveal this ability to Queen Arlene in their lessons. Because the language was connected with Zion the Phoenix, she might start telling him the Sianian god expected his allegiance or something else alarming. He sat there, blank-faced while King Robert spoke.

  “Father,” Bertilde begged, “please Father, you forgot the translation.”

  “That I did. I hope you’re studying the Phoenix Tongue diligently, Bertilde.”

  “I am, but I—”

  “All right, all right.”

  King Robert rushed through the translation, which was word for word with Rafen’s mental one. Rafen ran his fingers along the runes on the table edge absentmindedly. Glimpsing an ‘s’ shaped rune surrounded with three triangle markings, his heart skipped a beat.

  His name.

  It originated from this language. Perhaps that was why Rafen could understand it. He looked away, unsure what to think.

  The Selsons began their meal, and conversation gra
dually arose which, to Rafen’s relief, excluded him.

  “I heard about the ships, Father,” Robert said. “We were shocked when we received a message saying only two would return.”

  “Ah, yes,” King Robert said, his face sagging. “I’ll not forget that night. I’m glad you weren’t there to see it, my dear,” he addressed Etana. “And the Falchion so badly damaged it had to stay in Pavel all that time! We’ll be lucky to see it in the next two weeks.”

  Rafen listened intently. On the Phoenix Wing, Etana had explained something about King Robert’s fleet being damaged in a storm.

  “Poor chap.” Kasper stared at the table. “Ageron, I mean.”

  “’Twasn’t his fault,” King Robert said, putting down some pork. “There was nothing he could do. I pity the man. He says he doesn’t want to sail again.”

  Rafen looked up to find Annette staring at him. He glanced over to see if Etana had collected herself after her scolding. She still had her red head bent as she ate, and Rafen had the horrible impression she was crying, even though her admonishment had been the most loving Rafen had ever seen.

  “I had a response to my letter today,” King Robert said. “Remarkably quick it was. A philosopher delivered it.”

  “Pray, what letter was this?” Queen Arlene asked testily.

  “The one to His Majesty Albert, my dear.” King Robert held out his chalice. A servant approached hurriedly with a gold flagon of wine. “It wasn’t a long reply, but—”

  “Did it have his seal?” Queen Arlene interrupted.

  “Of course,” King Robert said impatiently. The servant filled his chalice and moved on to Annette. “I’m not a fool, my dear. Though, the letter was unusually short. All he wishes to say he will pass on directly to us in three months’ time, when he and his Runiship arrive from Sarient.”

  Robert straightened up, suddenly interested. Kasper looked faintly depressed.

  “Uncle Albert and Cousin Richard are coming to see us?” Bertilde asked, leaping up so violently that she almost upset her plate of food.

  “Yes, darling,” King Robert said. “You mustn’t call them that when they arrive, all right? You know how testy they are about titles.”