by Anne Logston
“I thought you might like the room where your mother stayed,” Lady Rivkah said tentatively. “Chyrie and Valann were only here a short time, but still—come and see it, at least.”
The room was nothing special; Ria’s room at Lord Emaril’s keep had, in fact, been larger and had more furniture and tapestries. But the windows looked out over the ruined tower and toward the forest.
Lady Rivkah followed Ria’s glance to the tower.
“Chyrie and Valann loved that tower,” Lady Rivkah said rather wistfully. “They’d spend almost every evening up there. Sometimes they’d even sleep at the top of the tower. I don’t think they much cared for being indoors.”
Ria looked at the tower again.
“Do—do I look much like her?” she asked impulsively. “My mother.”
“Very much like.” Lady Rivkah smiled affectionately. “Her hair was curly like yours, but it was a kind of golden brown, not black, and her eyes were a sort of gold color, not blue-green. But the set of your face is just like Chyrie’s, and you’re small like her. I always wondered how such a tiny thing could have so much fire inside her. She’d not give ground before the brawniest elf-hating fellow in the city, and give back as good as she got, too, even when she was heavily pregnant.”
“She wouldn’t have let someone marry her off to a man she didn’t want,” Ria said pointedly.
“She didn’t want to come to Allanmere,” Lady Rivkah replied quietly. “She didn’t want the elves to ally with the city, and I doubt she wanted to give up her children, either. But your mother was wise enough to put aside what she wanted for the welfare of others. It’s not only nobles who sometimes must make sacrifices for the good of their people.”
Ria was stubbornly silent, although she wanted to protest that she heartily wished her mother hadn’t given up her children, no matter what noble reasoning had gone into that decision. She wondered if Chyrie had considered that the “sacrifice” she was making condemned her daughter, too, to life as an oddity, a stranger among people who would use her only as a political tool. Suddenly she was furious, as angry at the mother she’d never known as she was at her foster parents. Why had they done this to her, all of them?
“You’ve taken good care of him,” Lady Rivkah said suddenly, breaking Ria’s train of thought, and it took Ria a moment before she realized that Lady Rivkah was speaking of the chirrit on her shoulder. “Have you given him a name yet?”
Ria shook her head, still too angry to speak.
“You’ll need to name him soon,” Lady Rivkah said. “Chirrits are very intelligent; that’s why mages like them for familiars. No intelligent creature likes to live without a name.”
When Ria still said nothing, Lady Rivkah sighed and shrugged.
“I’ll leave you to settle yourself in,” she said. “If you want another room, choose for yourself, but you’ll have to wait until the maids have time to clean it. After supper I’ll show you where the baths are. By that time the clothes should be brought in.”
Ria ignored Lady Rivkah’s exit, but a moment later the High Lady’s statement finally sank in. Where the baths are? Why in the world didn’t the servants bring up the tub and water as usual? Maybe there were so few servants that a bathing room of sorts had been set up near the kitchen so the water wouldn’t have to be carried so far. Wait—Lord Sharl had spoken of springs of hot water being found far below Allanmere that the mages had tapped and brought to the surface in various places in the city and in the castle, too. That must be what her foster mother had meant. Well, that would be interesting, at least.
Ria glanced around the room. It could have been anyone’s room, rather small and a little barren. There was no sign that anyone extraordinary had ever stayed there. Inelegant quarters for the future High Lady of Allanmere. But then, likely after her marriage she’d have other quarters, with Cyril.
That thought made her grimace. Marriage—and to Cyril, yet! Doubtless he’d want to do the man-woman thing, too, that the High Lord and Lady did in their rooms and that the servants sometimes came out to the stables to do secretly, unaware of Ria in the hayloft. The whole thing looked clumsy and uncomfortable to her, maybe even painful, although from what she’d seen, the servants certainly seemed to like it. Ria was curious enough to give it a try—someday.
Still, marriage to Cyril! She didn’t want to wear scratchy gowns and shoes and attend stuffy formal suppers and sit in audiences. She didn’t want to arbitrate boring land disputes or figure tedious crop inventories, and most of all she didn’t want to spend her days and nights inside stone walls instead of outside in the fresh air.
In a rush of daring, Ria dashed to the window and climbed up on the ledge. She could work her way along the wall of the castle and climb down the tumbled blocks of the tower easily enough, and from there the debris might hide her until she reached the inner wall. And then—
Ria stopped, shaking her head.
And then the peasants working on the grounds, clearing debris and mending the walls, would surely see her and stop her, and if they didn’t, the guards on the inner wall would. She’d never even tried making her don’t-see-me work while she was moving. Then she’d have to get through the northern part of the city to the outer wall. At the very least she’d be sighted crossing the broad expanse of bare land between the wall and the forest. The only possibility would be to make the journey on a night when the open land wouldn’t be lit by moonlight; Ria had learned, to her surprise, that everyone but she seemed pitifully unable to see in the dark.
And what if she reached the forest? Ria was no fool; she knew the elves of the border clans—likely Blue-eyes, as Lord Sharl had said—might welcome her onto their lands no more than they did her foster parents. But she thought it likely they wouldn’t shoot an elf appearing to flee from the human city, at least until they questioned her. Lady Rivkah had made sure that Ria and Cyril learned Olvenic, both the kind spoken in the eastern elven cities and the kind spoken by the elves near Allanmere, and even Lord Sharl had insisted on regular practice; one day, after all, they’d be negotiating with those elves in the Heartwood. The Blue-eyes just might listen to Chyrie’s daughter, might let her continue into the forest. Might even know where her brother could be found.
Maybe they’d even—
“There you are.” Lord Sharl leaned against the door frame. He was wearing his patched traveling leathers, liberally besprinkled with dust. “Rivkah said you probably wouldn’t stick your nose out of your room for some time. Come and see this anyway.”
Ria sighed irritably, but she followed her foster father through the halls of the castle to the west side, then across the grounds to the wall. The wall here was largely intact, as was the western tower when Lord Sharl led Ria up through it. The guard at the top of the wall bowed, eyes wide, when Lord Sharl emerged from the doorway.
“Look at that,” Lord Sharl said, turning Ria gently to face westward and indicating the view with a sweep of his hand.
Ria looked. Almost directly beneath them was the broad expanse of the Brightwater River. Southward lay a number of sturdy wooden docks built out into the stream of the river, piles of stone buttressing each support against the strength of the water. Ria could see stacks of debris where likely one or more of the old docks, probably fallen into disrepair, had been torn apart and rebuilt. The docks now were fresh and new; even now Ria could see Yvarden standing there, doubtless casting the antirot and worm-repelling spells to keep the wooden beams sturdy.
Across the river to the west lay fields. Those fields were green-gold with ripening grain now, or green with the tops of vegetables. Here and there Ria could see a break in the fields, winding lines of streams branching out from the Brightwater, or darker blots of farms.
“What are you seeing out there?” Lord Sharl asked after a moment.
Ria shrugged. “The river. The docks. Farms.” What else was there?
“Hope,” Lord Sharl corrected. “Hopes and dreams. More than a thousand people who have tied their li
ves and the lives of their children to this city. I brought them from all parts of the known world—folk whose homes and lands were destroyed or rendered unusable by the invasion, folk from uninvaded countries where all the good land was already taken, folk from large families who had no more land to parcel out, folk who weren’t born to land and who didn’t have the money to better themselves. They came because I made them a promise. Sixteen years ago I made the same promise and I broke it. This time I’m going to keep it.”
Lord Sharl gestured down at the muddy river.
“That’s why I’ll keep my promise this time. I’ve spoken to merchants in the north—dozens, maybe hundreds of them. As settlement moves west, the Dezarin becomes more and more impractical. This was the only site convenient to both the river and the trade road; that’s why I chose it. The Brightwater River will become the new supply line between north and south, and we’ll be the only trade city on the Brightwater. Emaril frets about the depth, but I’ve had depth readings taken all along the length of the Brightwater from rafts. Sixteen years ago we had supply ships carrying down full loads of coal, by the gods, in high summer when there hadn’t been rain for weeks. That river can carry anything we load it with, and it’ll carry it right to our door.”
Ria eyed the river dubiously. It didn’t look all that special to her.
“There’s only one thing as important to the success of this city as the river,” Lord Sharl continued. He turned Ria around to look in the opposite direction at the forest. “The elves. Their goodwill might not save this city, but I can assure you that their continued hostility will destroy it. If the border clans made a determined effort, they could make it so dangerous to pass around the southern tip of the forest that nobody could get to the city from the trade road. It wouldn’t take much to dissuade merchants from diverting their caravans to Allanmere—just a few arrows now and then, or even one or two very decisive bloody raids, and then the river trade I’m counting on will be just another empty dream.
“We need timber from the forest for building. Even if we build every house and shop out of stone, we’ll still need beams for the roofs, for floor supports, and wood to burn until we can bring in shipments of coal. As the plains around the city are dug up for fields, we’ll need to hunt in the forest for food and furs, too, until enough livestock can be bred to feed the city. Even healing herbs—most of them grow in woodlands, not on the open plains. Those are commodities the elves could trade in, if they’d trade.”
Ria remained silent. She could see where this trail ended.
“But we can’t negotiate with the elves if we can’t talk to them,” Lord Sharl said after a moment’s silence. “Sixteen years ago some of them would have talked to me—perhaps most of them, thanks to Rowan’s alliance. Even the squabbling between the clans over territories might have worked to our advantage, made our trade goods seem more desirable. That alliance had fallen apart when last I talked with Rowan, though, and that was right after the war, just before Rivkah and I returned to Cielman. Since the invasion I imagine there’s a good deal more free land than there are elves to claim it. Any shortage of game should have long since replenished itself. They have everything they need, and they’ve had sixteen years to enjoy it and let their hatred of the humans grow, with a poacher picking at the edge of the forest now and then to keep their anger and their arrows ready. A good many of the clans that might have negotiated with us sixteen years ago won’t do it now, even if we can reach the inner clans at all. I’m not sure they’ll even talk to you. But we have to try.”
Ria clenched her jaw stubbornly, stroking the chirrit pup.
Lord Sharl patted her shoulder gently.
“I understand your feelings,” he said. “I and each one of my brothers grew up knowing our father might arrange a marriage for us with one of the neighboring families to bring whatever advantage they could—land, mercantile affiliations, whatever. Even when I met Rivkah, for years we didn’t marry because of the possibility that I’d need to make an alliance marriage later. I could gain great advantages by marrying Cyril to landed nobility, possibly obligating several merchant families to us and vastly facilitating later trade. But he’ll marry you because of a promise I made before he was even born, that you’d be wed to my firstborn son. And wed you’ll be, not only because of that promise or because I need that link with the forest—although both of those are factors—but because it’s the best I can do for either of you.”
“I don’t want to marry him,” Ria protested hotly. “And I don’t think it’s best for me. But nobody ever bothered to ask me what I thought.”
Lord Sharl turned and smiled a little pityingly at her.
“And what’s the matter with Cyril? He’s intelligent and strong, a fair fighter and training to be a mage. You’ve known him all your life. You used to be such great friends. Don’t you like him now?”
Ria squirmed.
“I like him well enough,” she said reluctantly. “But not that way. I like him like a brother and a friend. When he has time for me,” she added quickly. “Mostly he doesn’t want to be bothered with me these days.”
“All boys pass through a stage where they don’t want to be bothered with girls,” Lord Sharl chuckled. “But I think Cyril’s past that time and quite ready for marriage. I don’t believe he doesn’t want to be bothered with you; I think he’s simply outgrown the games you used to play, and you haven’t.” He glanced sideways at Ria. “Do you know, your mother was over eighty years old when she bore you, and she still looked like a child to me. And her mate was centuries old.”
“Well, there,” Ria said eagerly. “You see, I can’t possibly marry Cyril. He’d be old and dead in a few decades, and I’d still be young.”
Lord Sharl was silent for a long moment, and Ria was surprised to see the weary sadness on his face.
“Rivkah and I spoke of that many times,” he said. “I’ve discussed it with Cyril, too. It’s a possibility, yes, that you’ll live far longer than my son, and if he died, I can’t imagine you ruling the city without him. But that may not be the case. Despite the way you look, you have some human blood. It may be you’ll grow old with Cyril. If not, I hope you’ll be wise enough to abdicate to your heirs when Cyril is gone.” He shook his head. “But that’s a future that you and Cyril will have to decide. And I think he’ll be glad enough to marry you, elven foster sister or not. Would you rather I’d done as other noble fathers do and married you to some fellow you didn’t even know, someone you might not like at all?”
“No!” Ria said quickly. The thought sent a spear of alarm through her. “No. I don’t want to marry anybody.”
“Ah. So you’d rather live on Cyril’s estate as a hanger-on,” Lord Sharl said, nodding sagely. “You came to us with nothing of your own, so you’d be happiest leeching Cyril’s wealth instead, letting him keep you in comfort while you give nothing in return.”
“I don’t want Cyril’s wealth,” Ria said hotly. “If that’s what I wanted, I would just marry him. You know, I didn’t exactly ask to be fostered with you at all, much less in order to steal his money!”
“Not that there’s much to steal, as almost everything we own has been invested in this city,” Lord Sharl agreed. “All right, so you don’t want Cyril’s wealth. How do you plan to live, then? You don’t know any trade well enough to support yourself. What exactly is it you do want to do, Ria?”
“I could—I could go back to the elves,” Ria said defiantly. There it was, her poor, timeworn hope made plain.
She’d hardly ever dared put that wish into words even in her own mind all these years. Her people, her home, had always seemed so distant, so unreachable. But her brother was somewhere in that forest. Even if her mother hadn’t wanted her, surely her brother, her twin, would welcome her. Surely he would. Wouldn’t he?
“Ah, I see.” Lord Sharl nodded again. “And knowing that they live rough in the wilderness, doubtless you’ve picked up thousands of skills useful to them during your sixteen shel
tered years in my brother’s keep. Or were you expecting that they’d pamper and keep you as we’ve done, while you yourself contributed nothing?”
“Well, it’s hardly my fault I wasn’t raised among them,” Ria mumbled. “Anyway, I’d learn. I can hunt already, and I’ve learned plants that can be eaten, too.”
“Yes, doubtless you’d learn,” Lord Sharl agreed. “You’re clever and quick to master a skill when you actually apply yourself. There’d be a great deal for you to learn, a tremendous change in your life. But it’s been my experience that the elves are inclined to be patient with their own kind. Still, your mother gave you to us to raise for a reason. Have you thought about what that reason might be?”
“I suppose she was just like you, wanting an alliance between the elves and the humans,” Ria grumbled. Actually it was a question she didn’t much like to think about. She was far too afraid of the answer.
“Would it surprise you to know that she hated me,” Lord Sharl chuckled, “and disagreed with almost everything I believed in, and for a long time would have liked nothing better than to see me dead, if not kill me herself?”
“It certainly would surprise me,” Ria said sourly. That hadn’t been in the histories! A part of her, however, cringed inside. How could her mother have hated her so much as to give Ria to her enemy?
“Well, she did, and she didn’t want the alliance, either,” he said. “But she knew we needed it—both the humans and the elves. Because the alternative is another war someday, a war between the city and the forest, and this war we’ll both lose, because in a war between neighbors who should have been friends and allies, there are no winners, only losers.”
“The alliance with the elves didn’t save the city before,” Ria pointed out.