Reese put that on the list after everything else, and then whacked her forehead with her data tablet.
She hardly had time to wonder how her residents were doing, managing all this. But two days after Lady’s Day, Irine poked her head in Reese’s office and said, “Those Eldritch are here.”
“What Eldritch?” Reese asked, massaging her temple.
“The teenager, and the man you gave the dogs to?”
“What?” Reese sat up straight. “Here? Like, in the castle?”
“In the courtyard, anyway. They’re asking for—” Irine stopped as Reese jogged past her. “You. Right! Off we go!”
The two males really were in the courtyard, and in defiance of the usual Eldritch reserve they were staring at the activity going on around them. In their defense, it was worth staring at: the chapel had already been repaired, or as repaired as Reese wanted it anyway, but the new chapterhouse to teach the mind gifts was going up along with Hirianthial’s hospital; the Tam-illee had repaired the fallen castle tower only to start tearing it all apart again to install the gem grid and modern amenities that the rest of Rose Point also still needed. Bryer had made significant headway on the overgrowth of the garden, but there were still more winter roses in places than there was clear ground. Plus, the bleeding sheep, getting into everything and then vanishing again….
“Hi!” Reese said. Which… wasn’t very ladylike of her, but she was in her beat-up old Earthrise uniform of vest and pants, to which she’d added a short jacket to combat the cold, and she didn’t really look the part anyway. “I didn’t expect you, but welcome!”
“Lady,” the elder of the two said. “We’ve not been formally introduced. I am Shoran, and this is Talthien. You said the dogs would be coming, but you didn’t know when?”
“The Guardkin should be here soon,” Reese said. “I’m hoping before New Year’s.” On the same Tam ship that was bringing them the food, she hoped.
“But not here yet,” Shoran said, with one of those abbreviated nods you could miss if you weren’t watching for it. “Thank you, Lady. Come, Talthien.”
And then they turned to go. Shocked, Reese said, “Did you walk all the way up here just to ask?” Which… wasn’t the most tactful thing to say. But it was over ten miles. How fast could people walk? How many hours had they been on the road? Just to get here, ask a question, and leave? And now they had to walk all the way back… “On your feet??”
The two glanced at one another. The older man looked discomfited, but the younger one flashed her a grin, as if he expected her to come up with some new and dazzling surprise. “Yes?”
“No, wait, stay here. Irine! Ir—oh, blood, don’t stand right behind me like that!”
“It’s not my fault you don’t pay attention to anything when you’re anxious,” Irine said, pressing on the ear closest to Reese’s exclamation. “What?”
“Wait here,” she told the Eldritch. Then, thinking better of it, “No, come with me.”
Shoran glanced at the teen again, then said, “Of course, Lady.”
Reese led them to the stables, determined. The horses had been some of the first things to arrive for reasons relating entirely to the Eldritch mania for them. She hadn’t been planning on hosting actual animals until she’d gotten the Earthrise set up with her new crew, but Liolesa had made separate arrangements with Kerayle and Laisrathera’s first horses had arrived with that shipment. She thought they were nice animals—a little intimidating at first, but you got used to them—but she hadn’t realized what they’d mean to the males she led into the stables until she heard the gasp behind her.
“My Lady,” Shoran breathed. “These are yours?”
“All of them?” the youth added.
“God and Freedom help me, yes. Only the first of the bunch even. The Queen wants me to breed them for her, so I’m going to end up with even more of them. An entire herd of them.” She trailed off and eyed them both, the elder in particular. Being a trader had taught her to recognize avarice on even the most schooled of faces. Shoran wasn’t hiding his that hard. “We’re supposed to have multiple types? I don’t know the first thing about breeding horses.”
“I guess that’s a servant to beasts thing,” Irine added, staring up at the ceiling with her hands folded in front of her hips.
“They’re magnificent,” Talthien said, hushed. “The one you rode, Lady… we’d never seen anything like it. To see so many others just as beautiful!”
“How about this one?” Reese said, stopping in front of one of the spares. She and Hirianthial had horses of their own—that’s what happened when you lost bets—but they’d gotten a handful of others to start their herd and no one was attached to any of them yet.
“To breed?” Shoran asked, coming to stand alongside her.
“For you,” Reese said. “Or… if there’s one you like more? Just not the two in the front two stalls. Those are mine and Hirianthial’s.”
At last she shocked a real expression out of the man. He was gaping at her. “My lady! No, you cannot mean it! I… own a horse… I haven’t…”
“Ever?” she asked, concerned. Maybe she’d gotten this wrong?
“Owned a horse?” he said, stunned. “Such an expensive… no! Never! No servant would! Care for them, yes. I did that long ago. But our last horse died over a century ago. And even then it wasn’t mine.”
“Whose was it?” Irine asked. “Wasn’t Corel dead by then? And all the nobles who lived here?”
“Yes,” Shoran said. “But servants don’t own anything. Everything belongs to the sealbearers. Even if the sealbearers are dead.”
“Well that’s—” Irine stopped short, which was good because Reese suspected the next word was going to be ‘stupid’. Instead the Harat-Shar said, “That’s not how we do things here. And when Reese gives you something, you can keep it.”
“Which I am,” Reese told him, starting to find the conversation amusing. Mostly because the teenager was beaming. “But only one of them. You need one; how else are you going to get here every day, if you’re going to insist on coming to ask about the dogs?”
“But—”
“Shoran-alet,” Reese said firmly. “I don’t have the first idea what to do with these things. Right now the Tam-illee are checking on them, because some of them learned horsery on some farm Lesandurel keeps for himself on Earth. But they can’t do it forever. I need them for other things. You, on the other hand, know about horses. Maybe you can come fix this problem for me?”
“And the breeding part,” Irine added. “I’ve started researching that—”
“You have?” Reese interrupted, bemused.
“I like babies!” Irine folded her arms. “Anyway. I’ve started, but I could use someone with experience to advise me.” Her ears sagged. “Ah… a lot of experience. I like figuring out breeding stuff, but I know more about people than animals.”
This made the youth stare at her, which Reese supposed was a reasonable reaction from someone who probably thought Irine looked more than half-animal herself.
Shoran cleared his throat. “I could not begin to choose one of these for myself—”
“Without riding them!” Talthien crowed. When his elder glared at him, the youth said to Reese with a grin, “Can we ride a different one to and from the castle every day? By the end of the week we’ll know.”
“We’ll know, is it?” Shoran said, with narrowed eyes and one lifted brow.
“Please, Lady?”
Reese laughed. “Sure. Try before you buy and all that. Except you’re not buying this horse. You’re accepting it as part of your wages for working here, because you can’t work here without commuting, and a seven hour walk is not acceptable.”
“Three hours,” Talthien corrected.
“Three hours is too much,” Reese said. “So pick one out for today and tack it up—do you know how to take care of saddles and things? That would be another load off my back—and go home. And come back tomorrow.”
&nb
sp; “Can I too?” Talthien asked.
“I’ll employ anyone who’ll work at a useful task,” Reese said. “And you can tell everyone that.”
“But what’s useful to you, Lady?” the youth asked.
“At this point? Everything.” She nodded to Shoran. “I’ll let the two of you get on with it then.”
As they left the stables, Irine said, “You’re trusting them to teach them that they’re worthy of your trust, aren’t you.”
“It worked on me,” Reese said, tucking her hands in her pockets.
Irine slipped her arm through Reese’s. “It really did.”
Reese looked at her, at the golden profile with the amber eyes. She’d known Irine for years, and yet, how well did she really know her? “You were serious? About the breeding thing?”
“Oh, sure!” Irine nodded. “I’ve started family trees for all of us. I’ve got our genealogy—me and Sascha’s, I mean—but I don’t know much about anybody else’s yet besides Hirianthial’s. That’s a matter of Eldritch public record, more or less, so I’ve requested it from the Ontine archive.” She grimaced. “The original copy of that was at Jisiensire’s estate.”
Reese winced.
“Yeah. But the Queen keeps copies, so…” Irine shrugged. “I’ve always loved the idea of generations rolling over, and having people continue through time that way. That’s why I’ve always known I would settle down somewhere and have a family of my own. It’s a relief knowing that I don’t have to be here for something of me to still be around, you know?”
Reese glanced at her sharply. “That’s… profound.”
“Is it?”
“Most people want to live forever,” Reese said, feeling her way around her love for Hirianthial and what it implied for their future.
“I don’t,” Irine said firmly. “It’s not that I’m not scared of dying, because I am definitely scared of dying. But… I’m young and even I can see a point where I’ll be tired and glad to let other people do things for a change. That’s how the universe keeps going, arii. It makes itself new in every generation that discovers it for the first time.” The tigraine looked up at the walls of the castle. “Maybe that’s what the Eldritch need most. Staying here… it’s bad for them. More than any of us they have to see new things, and discover as much of it for themselves as they can. And when they run out of new things to see, they need to surround themselves in people who are constantly finding things out for the first time so they can remember what it was like.”
Reese said nothing for a while as they walked toward the castle doors. Then, quietly, “I guess I should get with the baby-making.”
“You know what the Queen would say….”
Reese snorted and tried for a mimicry of Liolesa’s fancy accent. “‘See to the succession, Laisrathera.’”
The tigraine giggled. “Exactly!” They heard hooves, turned… saw Shoran and Talthien sharing a saddle on one of the gray horses. The elder waved a hand and Reese waved back.
“I don’t know about the rest of your plan,” Irine said, ears perked, “But that part’s going great.”
Reese grinned.
The following day Hirianthial came home, for no reason other than to steal a little time from both their schedules, “as we will soon be quit of this year and it seems a pity not to cherish its final hours.” Which was just the sort of thing he’d say, and she didn’t mind at all if it meant she could put down her data tablet and put off her meetings. For a few hours, anyway: that was all she could afford. She wondered sometimes at the source of that whisper, the one that said she was running out of time and had to get things set up sooner rather than later… and then she remembered the dragons.
Fleet was here. But they weren’t going to stay forever. The sooner the world had some modern defenses, and the modern mindsets to use those defenses, the sooner all of them could exhale and maybe concentrate on growing things at a saner pace.
“You look as if you need the holiday,” Hirianthial said as she left her office.
“I think we all do,” Reese said. “But… it won’t always be this hectic.”
“No,” he said. “We will have time, God and Lady willing.”
She smiled up at him, grateful for the reminder, and followed him down the stairs.
Their path took them through the great hall; Hirianthial paused there to look at the firebowl, which was still burning (as was required) via science (as Kis’eh’t had insisted). The empty glass had been set on a footstool alongside it because Irine had thought it suited the symbolism better, as if it was just waiting for someone to come have a seat and ask for a refill. There was a residue at the bottom that had become a granular red splotch. Reese liked that, too. It was a visual reminder that the party wasn’t over yet. Not until New Year’s Day... and the bleeding feast, which was giving her so many headaches she’d had Taylor bang a few hooks into the corner of her office so she could hang her hammock and take a proper nap. With Allacazam. When she could find him, because lately he’d been rolling into weird nooks. Did Flitzbe explore? Could they get lost? She hoped not.
“All good?” she murmured to him when he remained transfixed by the sight.
Shaking himself, just a little twitch of shoulders, her fiancé said, “More than good.” Glancing at her, he added, “Horses?”
“Horses.”
She’d gotten used to their outings involving horses because Hirianthial loved them, and because Reese was starting to associate them with getting out of her office and doing something that wasn’t working. Besides, she was getting a little fond of the horse Hirianthial had chosen for her. She’d been disturbed at first when she’d discovered that Kerayle allowed buyers the option to “design” their purchases’ personalities… nothing specific, of course, but predilections toward passivity or aggression. This reminder that genetic manipulation was a mature technology—more or less—and that humans had put it to use for less savory reasons also relating to the wishes of consumers had been unwelcome… until Sascha had shaken his head and opined that it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing to make sure the animal she got wasn’t going to have a tendency toward panic attacks.
The last thing she needed as a person with no experience riding was an animal that outmassed her probably a million times over with an anxiety complex. Or an aggressive mount who knew how to use all the pointy ends.
Hirianthial had put paid to the last of her objections by noting that any animal they bred on-world would be a natural-born creature with whatever personality God decreed. So she’d relinquished her grip on her objections and resigned herself to having a tailor-made mount, chosen specifically for the sweetness of her disposition.
And the mare really did have a sweet face, with large dark eyes fringed in extravagant lashes. Irine had mentioned the mare using those eyes to plead for carrots, and ever since Reese had noticed similar behaviors. Apparently the engineers on Kerayle hadn’t thought to code against predilections for begging, and Penny was an unrepentant beggar, using her lashes to advantage on anyone who’d look at her. It made Reese like her more, for somehow having found a loophole in her designers’ contrived personality template.
“Vain thing,” she told the mare with a grin.
“Who wouldn’t be, looking as she does?” Hirianthial said, amused.
Reese got her tack down—she had her own, stamped not just with her initials but with the Laisrathera crest—and let him put the saddle and bridle on for her. She wasn’t confident of her ability to dress the horse yet, nor was she highly motivated to learn if it meant she could watch Hirianthial murmuring to the animal, running a pale hand down her arched neck and looking every inch the fairy tale prince. She thought he looked more dramatic on the horse she’d bought for him, a black-coated stallion he’d named in true Eldritch tongue-twister tradition: ‘Iecuriel,’ which meant “Steadfast.” More or less. There was some nuance there he hadn’t explained, but that caused Liolesa’s mouth to twitch when she heard about it.
Reese h
ad more prosaically named hers for the bright copper shine of her coat, and for the superstition her grandmother had once shared with her, about how if you found a Terran penny you should keep it because it meant you’d never be poor. Penny was Terran, valuable, and the right color: close enough.
“Shall we?” he said when he was done.
“Let’s go,” Reese said, and accepted his help up. Penny was a lot taller than the horse she’d ridden on Kerayle. She tried not to think about that; it kept her from dwelling on what it would be like to fall off. At least with the Fleet ships in orbit she had access to real medicine, and soon enough she’d have it in her own courtyard. Plus a doctor who’d already rebuilt her esophagus, so a broken neck wouldn’t surprise him. Hopefully.
“You won’t fall,” Hirianthial assured her.
Reese chuckled. “You’re only saying that to make me feel better.”
“Yes.” At her skeptical look, he laughed, guiding them out of the stable and into a day gone a damp and cottony gray. “Because if you believe you won’t fall, you won’t. She’s paying attention, you know. If you convince yourself, you will convince her, and your prophecy will fulfill itself.”
Reese shifted in the saddle, making sure her toes were pointed in the right direction in her stirrups. “I know. Terry’s told me a thousand times during our lessons.”
“The lessons have been doing you good. You look more comfortable.”
“You notice?” She glanced at him—which was also something new. She’d had to work hard to figure out how to look to one side or the other without accidentally signaling Penny to go that way.
“Certes. I would dare to suggest it suits you…”
Reese laughed. “I wouldn’t go that far. Not yet, anyway. But thank you for noticing.”
He smiled at that. His horse was more restive than hers, but he handled it with the ease of someone who’d been riding for centuries; Penny ignored the noises in the courtyard with a sort of long-suffering tranquility, only occasionally twitching an ear toward something. Reese was grateful for her apathy, and had secreted a few sugar cubes in her pocket for after the ride.
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