her instruments 02 - rose point

by M. C. A. Hogarth

  “Isn’t that the truth,” Reese muttered.

  Sascha glanced in. “Hey, Boss. You’ll want to come out here for this.”

  Reese grimaced. “Don’t tell me something exploded.”

  “Uh-uh. But Hirianthial’s got a cousin and she’s come to meet us.”

  The woman awaiting them in the parlor was, like all the Eldritch Reese had met so far, tall and fair and elegant. Pregnant—that was new, and knowing how Hirianthial’s wife had died made her suddenly far more aware of it—and animated by an eager interest that made her seem almost human. But for all that, what unnerved Reese was the realization that this woman, who was supposedly Hirianthial’s cousin, looked less like him than the Queen.

  Felith said, “Captain Eddings, the Lady Araelis Mina Jisiensire, Shield-bearer and current holder of the seal for Jisiensire, and kin to the train Roshka.”

  “Wait,” Irine said. “That’s a Harat-Shariin name!”

  “So it is,” Araelis said, eyes dancing. “Sellelvi was made sister to Fasianyl Mina years ago, and so I can claim the relation. She was pard, though, not tigris. May I sit?” she added to Reese. “My feet never cease with the aching.”

  “Oh, yes, please,” Reese said, startled. “I’m sorry, I’m not used to hosting in a place like this. Felith, can we get something to drink, maybe? Please?”

  Felith smiled. “I shall have it fetched.”

  “Don’t feel you have to stand on formality,” Araelis said, an invitation Reese felt a lot more comfortable accepting from her than she had from the Queen. “I have been waiting these many years for out-worlders to come here. We have had a long association with them, through Sellelvi and then the Tams—you know the Tams, of course?—yes, they are friends to us through Lesandurel Meriaen Jisiensire. Outside the Galares, you will find no firmer friend on this world than through us, as I’m sure you know, having traveled with Hirianthial.”

  “Your cousin,” Reese said.

  “Just so,” Araelis said. “I imagine he has not told you, nor that he used to be the seal-holder for Jisiensire.”

  “Does that mean what I think it means?” Irine asked.

  Araelis linked her fingers together over her belly and said, “I think we have a great deal to talk about, you and I. We could begin with my cousin’s relation to the throne, something that should be of particular interest to you.” This she directed at Reese.

  “I’m almost afraid to ask.”

  “I’m not!” Irine said, ears perked. “Tell us! Wait, let me guess. He’s the heir to the throne!”

  “Not quite...”

  “Not quite?” Reese repeated.

  Araelis smiled. “He and Liolesa are cousins, and have been close since childhood. Queen Maraesa’s sister Rylaniel remained a Galare when she married, of course, being a woman, and had Liolesa... and Maraesa’s brother Theval married into Sarel Jisiensire, and became Hirianthial’s father. So you must understand, Captain... Hirianthial is quite the eligible man. Particularly since he was once, and might be again, a seal-holder. That is to say, a decision maker for all the families that live beneath the banner of a House, and their tenants. He may need your help, thus.”

  “My help!” Reese said. “Doing what?”

  “Beating all the interested ladies off him, I’m guessing,” Sascha said.

  “Look,” Reese said, holding up her hands. “Let’s start from the beginning, all right?” She looked at Araelis. “You seem willing to actually explain all this stuff that no one else wants to talk to us about. I’m not going to ask why in case that gives you a reason to talk yourself into not doing it.” She paused as Araelis hid a grin, poorly. “So... how’s this. I’ll keep pouring the... whatever this is. Tea? Cider? Whatever it is. And you keep going.”

  “I can think of no finer way to spend the morning,” Araelis said.

  “Even if it breaks the Eldritch veil?” Reese asked.

  Araelis snorted. “Once a man’s gotten under it and started kissing, it’s a little late to pull it back down again, Captain.”

  Irine pressed her face into Sascha’s shoulder, snickering.

  “Oh hush,” Reese told them. To Araelis, “Fine. I’m used to being the knight in dented armor by now. Let’s get on with it.”

  The immensity of the morning’s training kept Hirianthial in the library long after Urise had gone, sitting alone in the light with the revelations of the world’s receptive stillness and feeling it implied in the quiet of the room. By the time he found the wherewithal to rise, he had grown stiff enough to need to stretch to settle his joints.

  There were people outside the library.

  He had not labeled them as threats, had not even realized he was assessing the surrounding area for company. Curious, he let himself out and waited, sensing they were seeking him in particular. When they came into view, he understood some of why: the man leading was in the white-on-white uniform of the Queen’s Sword, and the man at his side in the red-piped white of his second.

  They halted before him and saluted. He held up a hand. “Gently,” he said. “I no longer wear the uniform.”

  “No,” said the Queen’s White Sword. “But you filled it once and with honor. My predecessor spoke well of you, my lord.”

  “Your predecessor,” Hirianthial said. “Was that Suleven?”

  “Suleven’s protege was my predecessor,” this man said. “Thelerenan, out of Nuera.”

  Two terms since he’d stepped down—not surprising, given the rigors of the work. Protecting the Queen was a job for the young. “And you are, then?”

  “Olthemiel Nase, if you please, my Lord. This is my second, Beronaeth.”

  “Very good,” he said. “I perceive you were seeking me?”

  “You perceive rightly,” Olthemiel said. “Though I fear what I ask might be construed as impertinence.”

  The sheen of his aura was fiercely hopeful, touched with a delightful aggression; in the people assigned to his cousin’s safety, he approved. “Let me have the judgment of that. What is it?”

  “We have heard a great deal of your prowess, sire,” Olthemiel said. “And thought you might not take it amiss to be invited to use the Swords’ salle, rather than resorting to any lesser facility.”

  Hirianthial couldn’t help a chuckle. “And you hope to see me at work. A spar is what you’re asking, is it?”

  “Only tangentially,” Olthemiel said with commendable candor. “But yes, that also.”

  “You will be disappointed,” Hirianthial said. “It has been six decades since I’ve regularly carried a sword. It is rarely done in the Alliance.”

  “Perhaps,” the White Sword said, eyes sparkling, “you might let us have the judgment of that.”

  In keeping with the theme of his return to the world, the Sword salle was just as he remembered it: a round room floored in wood with clerestory windows investing everything with a cool, diffuse light. The changing rooms and armory were next to one another at one end of the salle, and the corridor leading to the palace on the other. The Swords’ barracks fed off that corridor as well as their mess. The arrangement led to a close community, one Hirianthial was surprised to learn he’d missed.

  He was saluted as he walked behind the White Sword and his second as if he was still one of them. It was always thus: one doffed the uniform, but the brotherhood never forgot one of their own. He’d done it himself, when he’d served his tenure, but to receive it was a very different thing than to offer it.

  He stripped down in the changing room among them, aware of their curious glances. He no longer looked entirely like them after his sojourn off-world; like most natives of light gravity worlds, he’d taken poorly to the typical environment in the Alliance and had been offered a medical regimen to acclimate his body. After a year of attempting to make do on his own, he’d finally accepted the treatment. He remained tall and lighter-framed than most of the Alliance’s members, but among Eldritch he was far more solid. Heavy gravity built denser muscle. By the time he’d donned a spa
re uniform, he’d acquired an audience that followed him onto the salle floor, where Olthemiel offered him his choice of practice weapons; he would not draw a House sword save to blood it. He selected one carved to evoke the standard broadsword issued the Swords and said, “I suppose we shall see how poorly in practice I have kept. Shall we begin with the exercises?”

  “As long as we can all join you, sire,” Olthemiel said, grinning. Sobering, he said, “Will you lead them?”

  Hirianthial canted his head, smiled. “You are the Queen’s White Sword now, Olthemiel. I will follow your lead.”

  The approval that washed over him from the soldiers watching was as tangible as a wind off the ocean, bracing and bright as salt. He could taste it, wear it like a cloak; it was lined in the peach-pale shimmer of Olthemiel’s gratitude to be honored, and to have his authority bolstered when it would have been so easy to tear him down. So it went, among the Eldritch, even here among this confederacy so different from the rest of society. But he had never subscribed to such pettiness, and would surely not begin now. Hirianthial issued him the short bow all Swords made their captain before training and took his place among the ranks that assembled to join them.

  The drills done by the Swords were as old as Settlement. Running them made Hirianthial realize they were another form of meditation; he was not long into the forms before he felt the heartbeat throb of his own power fade away, granting him access again to the great calm of the universe. He breathed through the joy of it and seeped into that deep quiet. It was the only thing that saved him when they paired off to begin the paired drills. His feet had moved him into position, and memory had bowed him in the traditional salute to his partner before beginning. It did not occur to him until his opponent attacked him that he had put himself in a position to duplicate the circumstances on Kerayle.

  That calm gave him the heartbeat pause he needed to stay his reflexive response. The shattering strength of the blow he pulled—its physical expression but a thin shadow cast by the mental attack he had to fight to arrest in full—felled him, and the entire room halted. Olthemiel sprinted for him. “My Lord!”

  “A passing spell,” Hirianthial said, panting. The dizziness was overwhelming; he had not expected it, and it had been a very long time since he’d battled nausea like a stripling new to training. “Being off-world has changed me. I should perhaps sit on the bench for a time.”

  “Of course!” Olthemiel said, solicitous, and nothing would do but that he escort Hirianthial there.

  He did not mark the time. He spent it exhausted from the effort of having not lashed out, dismayed at the raw sensitivity of his skin and nerves, and acutely aware that he was crippled. Men among the Eldritch carried the weapons and fought on behalf of their families, for it could be no other way with mortality rates so high for women in childbed. One answered insult on the dueling field; patrolled the family land for wild things that needed slaying; meted out justice to those who’d earned it and did battle with those who would take what they wanted in violation of laws both tacit and formal. The eldest male member of the family who was still hale bore the family swords, holding them between violence and the almost inevitably female holder of the seal and all the wealth it implied.

  He had trained since before he’d left dresses to bear swords. Even having left the seal to Araelis, he still carried Jisiensire’s weapons, and everyone would expect him to be the defender of Jisiensire’s honor. With Liolesa conniving to start a fight, it was folly to think he’d be able to avoid drawing them.

  And the first time someone lunged for him....

  Hirianthial ran his hand up the back of his neck until he found the dangle’s ties at his scalp. The bell Irine had braided into it shivered, and he flinched.

  The practice ended and the company disbanded. It was Beronaeth who approached him then, with Olthemiel following at his shoulder a few respectful paces behind. Hirianthial looked up at them, eyes narrowed, still resting his hand on the back of his neck.

  “My lord,” Beronaeth said, hesitated. “If I speak out of turn, prithee tell me. But I am the man charged with counseling the injured, and you have the reactions of a man who has been in a terrible battle. If there is anything I might do to aid you, I am at your disposal.”

  Surprised, Hirianthial said, “Thank you. I will consider your offer.”

  Beronaeth bowed and withdrew. Olthemiel stayed long enough to say, “You are welcome here at any time, sire.”

  How good it would be to belong again—and yet he was no longer one of them. Because it would have been rude to say so, Hirianthial answered, “I am honored by the invitation, Captain. Thank you.”

  Nevertheless, he waited until the rest of the company was done before using the changing room himself. He left the barracks out of sorts and thought to seek Reese, to keep his promise to her that he appear daily. But when he arrived, he was not greeted by her, nor did Felith open the door and announce him. Irine let him in instead, and her aura was a complexity that disarmed him. Then she spoke and disordered his mind entirely. “If you’re looking for Reese, she’s gone to the library.”

  “She’s done what?”

  “Gone to the library,” Irine repeated. “Felith needed a book and she insisted on going along. Araelis gave her a map and told her it should be safe enough since the library is next to the Queen’s wing and all your enemies are over on the other side of the palace—”

  “Araelis?” Hirianthial said, fighting dismay. “Has been here?”

  Irine folded her arms, and something in her aura was as powerful a warning as any he’d ever received. “Yes... yes, she has.”

  “The Captain...”

  “Isn’t exactly upset at you,” Irine said. “But I wouldn’t waste any time doing damage control. If you take my meaning, Lord-cousin-to-the-Queen.”

  “Araelis,” he growled.

  “I liked her,” Irine said. “But don’t take it wrong if I say she reminds me of some of my mothers.”

  “The characterization is apt,” Hirianthial said. “If you’ll pardon me?”

  “Please, get going,” Irine said with a lopsided grin. “Before she talks herself into a temper.”

  Reese was not in fact angry. There was no earthly way she could be angry when confronted with Liolesa’s library.

  “Oh, my,” she whispered, staring up the shelves. The smell alone gave her shivers. She wandered from one side to the other, stepped onto the dais and paused, feeling the unexpected give of the raised floor beneath the carpet—was it wood? Then drifted off it again and back among the stacks, through shafts of sunlight too weak to be responsible for the warmth rushing through her at the sight of such treasure. “How many books do you have?”

  “I would not know, my Lady,” Felith said, nervous and disguising it poorly as she sought the etiquette book she’d said she needed to coach Reese through the presentation. “I have not known anyone to undertake a count, though I presume there is one somewhere.” She picked a slim volume down and turned to face Reese. “Lady? This is the book. We should go, you should not be seen....”

  “But we just got here!” Reese said. “Who’s going to come all the way over here for anything? You’ve seen the size of this place, Felith. Blood, you should know it in your bones, you’ve lived here long enough! Besides, if anyone shows up I can hide behind a shelf or something.”

  Felith sighed. “As you will.” A little more kindly, “It is a magnificent collection. Not as large perhaps as the Cathedral’s, but quite respectable.”

  “If a library this big is ‘respectable’ for Eldritch, you’ve gone a long way toward redeeming your annoying habits,” Reese said, drifting through the long slanted columns of sunlight. She stopped in front of one shelf and reached for a book, paused. “Can I….”

  “Of course,” Felith said. “A library is hardly useful if not used.”

  Reese took the book down and balanced it in the crook of her arm while she leafed through it: creamy parchment pages, inscribed with glossy ink
that was ever so slightly raised on the paper, ink that smelled like a memory of something more pungent. The chapters started with beautifully illuminated capitals, leafed in silver that shone when she tilted the book toward the sun. She swallowed, fought tears and tried not to feel ridiculous. “Blood, it’s beautiful. Are they all like this? I bet they are. But they can’t be. Handmade? Hand-painted?”

  “It is how it is done here,” Felith said.

  Reese looked up at the shelves, over her shoulder at the rest of the library. She tried to calculate the amount of work it must have taken to create all these books by hand and failed. The Eldritch lived hundreds of years, but even so.… “Wait. These are all unique? Do you make copies?”

  “There may be one or two of each book,” Felith said. “But it’s rare to make more than a handful. The creation of a book is a laborious process.”

  Which made everything in this library so expensive that most people couldn’t afford to keep one. “You mean… almost no one has books.”

  “No,” Felith said, and amended, “The nobility typically keeps them. Among the good families, the libraries are made available to the tenants for borrowing. Some families hoard theirs, however, and do not permit them to be lent.”

  Reese looked down at the work of art in her arms and tried to imagine a world where books were a luxury only the very rich could afford—and only the very generous would share. How poor her life would have been had she not been able to read! Her monthly romance subscription was almost twenty years old now. She’d never skipped a month in all that time. Was there some Eldritch peasant somewhere, wishing her life was better, without even the meager escape she could derive from an afternoon reading?

  The lack of good plumbing was bad enough. The lack of lights and heat. But no books?

  How did these people live like this?

  The creak of the door opening caused Felith to gasp. Reese stepped behind the shelf and peeked out, then sighed as Hirianthial entered, shutting the door behind him. Walking back around the shelf she said, “Is it true? Books are for the rich?”