by Mark Smylie
Her handmaidens dressed in imitation of her, when in her presence. She knew that when they went out on errands without her most of them changed into more fashionable bodices and higher heels, particularly the youngest of them, Henriette and Ilona, both unmarried and hopeful for husbands. Well, almost all of them except Malia Morwin, the oldest and closest of her handmaidens and the sole Danian girl in her personal service, who had seemingly chosen a life of spinsterhood. Malia always wore a high-buttoned bodice in the style of her mistress no matter whether she was in Annwyn’s presence or not. Lady Annwyn’s Widows, she knew that they were sometimes called, particularly when on the rare occasion she had to accompany her father or her brothers on some duty about the city, and brought her full entourage. She supposed they were quite the sight to the twittering mocking birds of the High King’s Court.
When she was finally dressed and presentable as Annwyn Aliss Orwain, only daughter of Baron Leonas Orwain of Araswell, she and her handmaidens descended in the dark to the first floor of the great tower house, to the household shrine to their ancestors and the Divine King. Once upon a time, when the household was in its full power, almost a hundred members of the household staff would have awaited her arrival; but now, with the family out of favor in the years after the scandal, just under forty were left. Her father and two of her older brothers, Conrad and Leon, were unexpectedly out in the field with the Grand Duke Owen Lis Red, Crown Prince Edrick, and King Colin of Dainphalia, somewhere on the Plain of Gavant, and were not expected back in the city for weeks, not until before the Feast of Herrata. Campaign season and tourney season were not yet upon them, but once the first of spring had come, they had lit out for the plains to shake off the winter doldrums and prepare for the duties of the coming summer, and brownnose with those who would still entertain their presence. When she had been younger, she would have accompanied them, for all sorts of girlish reasons, but she did not ever think upon those lovely days now.
Archpriest Oslac, the highest Divine King priest of their baronial canton, held his duties to be at their household temple in their country estates at Araswell, as was good and proper, and so remained there even when her father was in Therapoli. Instead he sent one of his assistants, Theodras the Learned, to serve as her father’s personal priest and advisor when he was away from Araswell, and Theodras had left with him for the Plain of Gavant. Once upon a time they would have had more priests to go around, but the scandal had made it much harder to keep the posts filled. Her eldest brother, Arduin, was left in charge of the household and the family’s affairs at the High King’s Court, but she knew he would not appear for the morning prayers, while her second eldest brother, Albrecht, held the family’s home castle at Araswell with his knights. And as for her younger brother, Harvald, well, she had not seen him for weeks, and she cared not at all to find out where he was hiding himself.
So that left it to her as lady of the house to lead the morning rites. There in the shrine she lit candles and made libations to Islik, the Divine King of Heaven, and to Ami the Morning Star, the Dawn Maiden who would soon herald the sun’s arrival. She offered prayers for the health and safety of Awain Gauwes Urfortian, High King of the Middle Kingdoms, King of Atallica, Dragon King of Therapoli, Seated King of the Sun Court, True Vassal of the Divine King, and for his Court and household. She offered prayers for the health and safety of her father and brothers, and to the memory of her beloved mother. She offered prayers and libations to the noble ancestors of her family, a storied Aurian lineage that could be traced back to the very shield-thanes of the household of King Orfeydda himself, conqueror of this great city; a prouder lineage, in some ways, than even that of the High King, who was not descended of Orfeydda or his household, as her father was sometimes proud to point out. Over a thousand years ago her ancestors had been amongst the first to step foot on the Gift of Heth, the Aurian name for the eastern shore of the Middle Kingdoms, and bring fire and sword first to the eastern Danians and then to the Athairi. Things were gladly different in the present age, of course, and now Aurian, Danian, Athairi, and Maecite Kings and nobles and their subjects all lived peaceably, side by side, united under the High King.
If she wanted to add another name to her prayers, she gave no sign, but everyone in the shrine knew she wished to, and as all that still remained in their household all loved her, their hearts broke for her when hers could not.
And when her duties in the shrine were finally done, she dispatched the household to begin their own. The windows of the first floor were thrown open, and the slowly brightening light of dawn allowed to enter into the dark house. The kitchens on the ground floor began to hum and crackle with the preparations for the morning meal and the stoking of the cooking fires, and soon the smell of baking bread was wafting through the house. Groomsmen tended to the horses in the rear stables, and lit the fires and braziers in the first floor great hall. The floors were swept, and fresh rushes strewn about to freshen the scent. The squires were dispatched upstairs to prepare the clothes of her brother and the knights of the household that still remained. And then slowly one by one those same worthies arrived in the great hall to take their seats and break their nightly fasts, with those of the knights that were married joining their wives from amongst the household and her handmaidens at their tables. Finally her brother arrived and set himself at the head table, and many of the rest of the household then sat down at their places, and though others still bustled about the house on their duties the meal finally commenced: bread and pastries with butter and olive oil for dipping, hard and soft cheeses, roasted chestnuts and hazelnuts with dried figs, fresh oranges and pears, Danian tourtels (herbed egg-and-spinach tarts that had become quite popular amongst their Aurian overlords), and poached eggs in a savory mushroom sauce.
Had her father been present, she would have been expected to take her place at the head table between him and her brother Arduin; but she gave silent thanks whenever he was abroad in the field, as that allowed her to claim her duties drew her elsewhere, and Arduin at least never pressed her. She ate sparingly, and alone, as was her wont, in a small room off the kitchens that served as her day chamber while the meal was being prepared for everyone else.
And so that day began like every other that she could remember in a long, long time. She spent that morning going over the household books of account with Malia and the master of kitchens, Tomas, reading aloud as she entered notes into the ledgers about the morning’s deliveries from the various merchants and vendors beholden to her father’s house. Reading was a rare skill amongst Aurian noblewomen, even for the lady of the house; but after the scandal, her scandal, they had found it impossible to retain a chief steward of any quality. And so she had taught herself to read and write, with the help of Tomas and a tutor from the University that she had discreetly hired. She still had to whisper the words aloud, even when by herself, but reading was perhaps her only remaining pleasure in life.
She broke from her work only to wish her brother and his knights a speedy return from their duties at Court and about the city. She felt the cloying darkness lift off of her shoulders as they rode out through the rear stable gates, and for the first time that morning she felt like she could breathe. The house itself seemed lighter, and brighter, as though the windows had suddenly grown larger. Sirs Lars and Colin Urwed and their squires were the only ones to remain behind as the House Watch; she knew their duty was as much to be her minders as it was to protect the household of her father, but she did not begrudge them their dual mission, for it was not due to any fault of theirs, and for the most part they left her to her own devices.
Annwyn returned to her day chamber and was working there with Malia when she heard the commotion at the rear gates and knew without having to ask that her brother Harvald had suddenly returned. She raised her head, listening to his voice in the rear courtyards talking to Sir Colin, and she took a deep breath, feeling that familiar oppressive darkness settle upon her once more, and she tried to calm the troubled knots in
her stomach before standing and smoothing the folds and pleats of her dress and bodice. Malia barely looked at her, simply standing and falling in behind her as she walked out of the room and toward the great hall. Malia’s face was a smooth mask, much like her own. And so this house makes all of us such great actors and dissemblers, Annwyn thought. That is the inevitable price to be found, when you live in a prison of despair.
She walked down the rear steps of the house into the rear courtyard, passing several porters carrying small bags and boxes, presumably intended for Harvald’s chambers. Groomsmen were already stabling Harvald’s horse, and her brother stood talking with Sir Colin and his squire, Herefort Hrum. She chose to stand and wait for him at the bottom of the steps, seeing no need to interrupt the warm welcome he was receiving, while Malia lingered several steps up behind her.
But finally Harvald spotted her waiting, and excused himself to come and greet her.
“Annwyn. Dearest sister,” he said, clasping her hands and bringing them to his lips so he could kiss each in turn. He leaned in and kissed her once on each cheek. “My heart is gladdened to see you brightening the steps of our father’s house.” He looked past her to take in her chief handmaiden. “And loyal Malia, my greetings to you as well.”
“Dear brother,” Annwyn said softly, as Malia gave a slight curtsey. I did not know you had a heart. She took in the dust and mud splattered across his boots and breeches, the state of his hair and the stubble on his chin, and the knot in her stomach grew tighter. She willed herself to blankness, and said nothing about his appearance. “Welcome home to our father’s house, and to our fair city. I thank the King of Heaven that he watched over your safe return.”
“I have traveled far, dearest and most beloved sister, and hopefully return with a prize that may help reinstate the fortunes of our great family,” he said with a grin. “I gather that Father is in the field? I suppose that’s well enough. My news should remain a secret for the moment, as he would think me a foolish dreamer, as he always does.” He paused, contemplating her, and she waited for his game to begin. “You know, I was originally thinking there was too much to do, but seeing you here, so fresh and beautiful, has reminded me of how poorly the road has treated me. I think perhaps a bath is in order. I hope you do not mind the burden of my company?” he said as he placed a hand on her elbow and steered her back toward the house.
“Your company is never a burden, dear brother,” she said quietly, as they walked up the stairs into the dark hall, Malia trailing in silence and sorrow behind them.
For what were once a sea-going people descended of Heth, God of the Sea and the Deep, Aurians had a decided aversion to water in large volumes. For where once they had sailed out of the Far North on their longships and spread terror to the shores of the Mera Argenta, they were now landlocked, cursed at sea by their own ancestor-god for their hubris and their crimes, and so they had abandoned his worship for that of the Divine King. Annwyn had never seen the curse take effect, though she had heard the stories in her youth, and the Bay of Guirant outside the city was supposedly littered across its bottom with hundreds of ships and the bodies of thousands of her countrymen, called down into the Deep by their ancestral god. And so they were now country lords, who turned their backs on the sea and instead only traveled where their feet or horses could take them.
Over the centuries that fear of the sea had permeated into their culture as a general distrust of water. The more ancient cities of the eastern Middle Kingdoms, Therapoli in particular, had been built in the age of Düréan expansion, and echoed the architecture and achievements of their Great Palace culture, which included aqueducts, underground cisterns, fountains, waterworks, and baths. Any house of quality in the city had pipes that brought water from the city cisterns; but whether they were actually used for household baths was a separate matter of taste and culture. Aurians tended to avoid the bathhouses of the city, or even the use of a filled bathtub in their own home; rather, they washed using a washbasin, towels or a sponge, and hand soap, and then anointed the body with perfumed oils.
And so the household servants had brought a basin of hot water for his bath up to his chamber from the kitchens, and set it on a table beside a polished, full-length mirror, and then mixed the water with rose petals. They arranged the soaps and towels and sponges by the basin, and then Annwyn dismissed them. Malia lingered, the last of them, and then stepped outside the chamber. Annwyn knew she would be there, listening, as did Harvald.
She turned away as her brother disrobed and stood in front of the mirror, looking at his reflection. She began to wet the bar of soap and the sponges, rubbing them in the water until foam started to appear.
“Things will be different soon, dearest Annwyn,” said Harvald, as she started to wash his back. “I can’t tell you the details yet, can’t talk about it until the time is right, and you probably wouldn’t understand anyway, but if what we’ve found is what we think it is, and we are successful in our next endeavors, then things will change for all of us very soon!” He seemed positively giddy.
“We?” she asked politely, running her hands and soapy sponge over his skin, rubbing away the dirt and grime of days of hard travel.
“Oh, yes, Black-Heart and me and some others we know,” he said. “You know, Stjepan, son of Byron, a man of An-Athair. I think I’ve told you about him before, we went to the University together.”
She nodded, as she knelt behind him so that she could wash his buttocks and his legs. “Yes, the one that Father doesn’t like,” she said.
Harvald laughed. “Well, you know Father,” he said. “He hates the Athairi worse than he hates the Danians. Can’t stand that I’m friends with one of them. And it doesn’t help that he blames Stjepan for causing all that nonsense back in the War of the False Book. Quite unfair, really. I mean, Stjepan was hardly the worst offender back then, even if he became one of the most infamous. And we all know I was never going to get higher than a clerkship at the High Court anyway, so that can hardly be Stjepan’s fault; I know Father was hoping for the Lord Chamberlain’s office, but we’d fallen too far from favor for that, and whose fault is that?”
Harvald turned around. His penis was erect and swollen, jutting angrily toward her face. My fault, she thought. He paused, waiting to see if she would react, but as always her face remained an expressionless mask, and instead she soaped the front of his legs and then his erect member, as though it were just another part of him. “No, if this all works out, Father will have to be thankful for me being just a clerk in the Chancery,” Harvald said, his eyes never leaving his sister’s hands. “It’s always about being . . . in the right place at the right time, if you know what I mean.”
Yes, I know what you mean, thought Annwyn and she felt as if a dagger had been plunged into her womb. But she did not allow herself to show it. “I’m sure it will all make sense when you get the chance to explain it to me, dear brother,” said Annwyn, rising to wash his chest.
“I’m sorry to be so mysterious, dear sister,” said Harvald. “You know that normally I would confide in you utterly, as you once confided in me, in happier times.” He smiled at her then, and she felt as if he had stabbed her again. She didn’t allow her expression to change at all as he searched her face with his gaze. She knew the game was about to start in earnest. She broke eye contact with him so she could turn to the basin. There was a ladle there, and she started to pour water over his body, rinsing away the soapsuds.
“I so miss your singing from when we were all younger,” Harvald said softly as she worked. “You never seem to sing anymore, and you had such a beautiful singing voice. Everyone thought so, even the High King. I think especially the High King. What was that Athairi song you used to sing? You know the one.”
He waited as she finished rinsing his body. Finally, she said, “The Chant Amora d’Afare y Argus. The Love Song of Afare and Argus.”
“Ah, yes, that’s the one, such a lovely song, so tragic and yet so moving. The Athairi had a beau
tiful language in those days. It’s always impressed me that you mastered the song so well,” he said, handing her a bottle of scented body oil from the table, then pausing, looking for any sign of her misery. “Can you sing it for me now, dear sister? Please?”
She remained expressionless as she nodded, refusing to give him any satisfaction. “Of course, dear brother,” she said.
And so she turned away a bit, and cast her eyes at the floor, and began to sing as her brother turned back to the mirror. Her voice was perhaps not what it once was, fallen ever so slightly out of tune by years of disuse, but that would be like saying that a rose was slightly less beautiful on the second day after it had freshly bloomed. She sang in old Athairi, which she was not sure her brother fully understood, but not knowing the meaning of the words would not have made the song any less beautiful to listen to. And as she sang, she anointed her brother’s back and buttocks with the oil, her hands sliding and slipping over his skin. She sang of Afare, the beautiful young mortal princess of the Court of the Golden Wood, and her True Love, Argus, the Knight of the Green Star. She sang of the disapproval of Afare’s father, the fae King of the Golden Wood, and his banishment of the knight beyond the Erid Wold of An-Athair.