“Did you hear, Hana? Father saw us out and wants to have supper at the inn!” Thaxa told her excitedly.
“I did hear.”
“I will see if we can bring you back some supper too,” Gwendrel said. Hana was surprised. Gwendrel rarely thought of anyone but herself.
“You didn’t answer my question. Do you need help getting dressed?”
“Of course not!” Gwendrel sounded like herself again. “I am not three years old.”
“Well, that didn’t last long,” Hana said.
“What was that supposed to mean,” Gwendrel asked.
“Nothing, call me if you do need help,” Hana said. She heard mistress Moira waking up Terad and she wondered if he would be well enough to go out. She shrugged her shoulders, it’s just the wheezing sickness. If the thorn-apple leaves did their job, he should be fine. She thought. She went back to the music room. She found herself returning to the room a lot. She longed to play the instruments there. She waited until she heard the front door slam shut before she stopped cleaning to listen. The house was quiet, they had gone. She sat behind the string Harp and moved it into position. Her fingers danced on the strings like she had been taught and the melody flowed like the voices of angels. She happily played until she opened her eyes to see Moira, Thaxa, Gwendrel and Terad staring at her. She tried to move out from behind the instrument and it fell as Moira angrily reached for her.
“Just who are you?” The stout, middle-aged woman had Hana fast by the forearm. “Common labor don’t have the skills you possess. First, you heal Terad and now you play an instrument?”
Hana was horrified, “Mistress Moira! You’re hurting my arm. I’m Hana, your maid, that’s all.”
Moira eyed Hana but loosened her iron grip. “I’m not sure I believe you. Where did you learn to play the string harp like that?”
Hana blinked, not sure how to answer. “My mother taught me when I was very young, Mistress.”
“And where did she learn how to play it? I have never seen any low-born learn to play such as you were just now.”
Hana looked at the golden string harp lying on the floor where it had fallen when Mistress Moira grabbed a hold of her arm. “I don’t know. She never told me and she died before I was old enough to ask her.”
Moira released Hana, forcibly throwing her arm back. “I’m going to check into this. I believe your mother is high-born and so are you! If I find that I’m right, I will have to discharge you for working under false pretenses. Come children.” She stormed off.
Hana absently rubbed her arm where Moira had held her and watched apprehensively as the woman continued to storm all through the house. She had never been so high strung before. It must have something to do with Lord Immoran. He was hardly ever around. Moira stuck her head back in the doorway, which gave Hana a start. “And I want this room spotless before you retire, is that understood?”
“Yes, Mistress.”
“And no more playing with the instruments.”
“Yes, Mistress,” Hana said. At least she has her doubts about me, Hana thought, or she wouldn’t have thrown me back like that or held my arm so tight. She risks some pretty stiff retribution if I do turn out to be high-born. She smiled at herself before going back to her dust rag. She gently dusted the instruments of the music room with care, fighting the unkind thoughts in her head of the Sephera children trying to play them and failing. Her patron’s children beat the Hammered Dulcimer as if they were hammering nails into wood. They plucked the harp as if they were plucking the feathers off chickens. And the Harpsichord, playing it all clipped and harsh. They made it sound like a wheezing, wounded animal. She went to the piano and sat behind the keys. She ran her duster over the white and black keys until she just couldn’t resist anymore. She got up and peered out the door into the hallway and then she went to the front door. They were really gone this time. She rushed back to the music room and slid behind the piano. She tapped one of the keys, slowly at first and then she began to play a haunting melody. She stopped abruptly. She again heard voices in the house. What did they forget now? Will they ever leave! At least they didn’t hear me playing this time. She thought. The front door closed again.
Hana suddenly felt mischievous and she peered again around the music room door. She slipped out into the hall and then to the parlor where she moved aside the heavy curtains so she could look out a front facing window. The three Sephera children and their mother were climbing onboard a carriage, bound for town. She smiled and hurried back the music room. She picked up the hammers for the dulcimer and began to play a beloved tune from her childhood. The notes caught the air and lingered sweetly with every tap of the wooden mallets. With every ting and tang of the mallet, the vibrations set her feelings on the delicate precipice of happiness. Her heart felt light and her mind cleared as the music made her yearn for home. She finished the song and put the mallets back down where she found them and picked up her dust rag again.
I wonder how Mistress Moira would treat me if she knew the truth? She thought. I’m not only high-born, but I am of a much higher station than she can ever hope to be! She reveled in the thought as she often did when Mistress Moira acted superior to her.
She dusted the piano keys for a moment before studying her dust rag with disdain. “I’m above this kind of work!” She said, and then she tossed the rag into the air where it stayed suspended. She looked around apprehensively as if someone might be watching her and then she cast her hands in the air. “Why not!” she said, as she flicked her wrists and twisted her fingers to create the meandering ribbons of light and sparkling illuminations of magic out of thin air. The dust rag spun and cakes of dust fell off it. The dust traveled around in midair, picking up more dust, here and there, throughout the room, joining the dirt piles together in a cloud. She pointed to the nearest window and flicked her finger. The window bolted open in a rush and the dust cloud exited the room with the sparkle and the flourish of bright blue and purple ribbons of Hana’s sorcery.
“More than what I seem, Moira says.” Hana mused. She plucked the rag from the air and pretended to speak to it. “She has no idea.”
Chapter 4 – Visitors
Hana sat in her servants quarters, just off the hallway at the back end of the kitchen, eating her supper. Mistress Moira had returned with the children and food as promised from the nearby inn. She was given only leftovers of course, but leftovers from Moira always tended to be much better than she expected. Her meal was comprised of generous portions of roasted chicken, carrots and potatoes. Hana was glad to have it. Too many suppers lately consisted of thin soup with a fist-sized hunk of day-old bread, and her fist wasn’t all that sizable. She finished her meal and fetched a bucket of water from the well outside for the dishes. When she was done, Hana hung up her apron and headed for her room. Mistress Moira had bought her a bolt of cloth at the shops earlier and she was anxious to get started on her new apron. She hadn’t even exited the kitchen before she heard hard knocking on the front door. Most people knocked moderately so the hard knocking made Hana nervous. Only people on urgent business tended to bang on the door so ardently. She felt the familiar sensation of panic rising within her.
Moira began hollering from somewhere near the kitchen for her, but instead of answering, Hana slipped out the side door of the house into the little herb garden behind. She could say she was gathering herbs for tomorrow’s supper and could not hear the door, that could be her excuse. She frantically began picking the fragrant plants. A few moments later the mistress of the house appeared at the side door.
"There you are, Hana! Come inside now, I need you to serve tea to our guests." She said.
"Yes, mistress," Hana said with reluctance. "May I ask how many cups?"
"Just three. Now hurry up." The rotund woman disappeared back into the house.
Hana took the herbs, she didn't even realize which ones she picked, to the kitchen and retrieved the tea set. She put a pot of water over the cook fire and made her way to the
front of the house. While she waited for the water to heat, she peered around the corner at the visitors and saw it was two women from Moira's social circle. She instantly relaxed.
"Hana, where is that tea?" She heard Moira say.
"She returned to the kitchen, "Coming." She shouted back in a sing-song voice so Moira wouldn't think she was being obstinate. It was at that moment that she heard the male voice. It was a deep, high-born accented voice. He must have been around the corner, out of my view! The panic sensation returned.
“Hana!”
“The water is almost ready, Mistress.” Hana sang back. She poured the hot water into the pitcher and took the tray out to the receiving area of the parlor. She set the tray down and poured the tea. The two women, she had met many times, but the man, she had never seen before. He was tall and dark with grey at his temples. He wore the accouterments of a nobleman, finely embroidered black cloth with golden trim. He eyed her like a hungry wolf eyed meat.
“Ah, is this one of your lovely daughters, Mistress Sephera?” He asked.
Suddenly, Hana remembered she wasn’t wearing her apron to denote who she was.
“Her, gods no. This is my maid, Hana. The girls are already in bed, I assume.” She looked to Hana who nodded.
“A maid?” The man said. “Surely not.” He reached for her hand and lightly kissed the top of it. All Hana could think of was that her hand probably smelled of herbs and dirt. “My name is Lord Sarren from the kingdom of Ag Caderan. I am friends of Lord Immoran Sephera, the master of this house.”
“All right,” Hana said. Not sure why he felt the need to tell a maid such information.
“On to the kitchen with you now, Hana dear,” Moira said. “Why don’t you see if we have any tea biscuits.”
“Aye, Mistress.’ Hana genuflected and hurried out of the room.
“I’ll return in a moment.” Hana heard Moira say. An instant later, she could hear the heavy woman storming up behind her.
“Hana, what the devil has gotten into you? Where is your apron and why are you trying your best to hide away?”
“I’m not hiding.”
“If you could have melded into the walls you would have,” Moira said. “There would have been two arms sticking out of the wall holding a tray of tea.”
Hana tried not to smile but it came anyway, “I was about to work on my new apron in my room. I wasn’t expecting company.”
“Well, company is what we have. Find your apron and your manners and act like the maid I pay you to be.” With that, Moira was gone back to the parlor.
“Yes, Mistress.” Hana took her old apron down from the hook in the kitchen and tried it on.
She arranged the biscuits on another silver tray and took them to the guests.
“How long has the girl been your employee?’ The man named Sarren was asking when Hana rounded the corner with the biscuits.
“Ah, some refreshments,” Moira said. “I will take the tray dear. You go back to the kitchen.”
“Yes, mistress,” Hana said and genuflected before leaving the room. She rushed to the kitchen, retrieved a glass and hurried to the room adjacent to the parlor. She carefully placed the glass to the wall and pressed her ear to the bottom of the glass.
“Now, where were we?” Moira asked.
“I asked how long the girl had been in your employee,” Sarren said.
“Not long, only a few months. She came to my door with references from the village warden of Eil, across the river. She was his employee for about a year.”
“Why did he bring her to you?” He asked. “Was she not satisfactory for him?”
“The warden accepted a job offer to be mayor of a town somewhere up north and the town supplied the servants. He wanted Hana to have a good employer since he couldn’t take her with him.”
“I see.” The man said. “You’re not wrong. She doesn’t seem to be of the low-born classes does she.”
“No, she doesn’t. This afternoon I caught her playing the harp as if she were born with it in her hands!”
“You don’t say. That’s not an easy instrument to pick up, so I hear. I do not play myself.”
“Preposterous!” One of the women folk was saying. “I had a servant once who played a variety of instruments. He took to them all with nearly no effort. He couldn’t read a lick of music either; he played them all by ear. Some people can just play. It means absolutely nothing.” She took a sip of tea.
“Well, she healed Terad of his cough and wheezing when the healer could not. She burned some kind of leaf.” Moira said.
The healer. Hana thought. I wonder if he came while I was sleeping and no one answered the door?
“Again, not that remarkable.” The woman was saying. “low-born folk have many such remedies, and I find they usually work better than our supposed healers.”
“Well, look at this drawing I found discarded. Hana drew it one day when the children were all out.”
“Very good,” Sarren said.
“Let me see that.” The other woman said. “Ha, I could show you a hundred such drawings from one of my servants. It doesn’t mean she is high-born.”
“Indeed,’ Sarren said. “Your staff appears to be quite talented, Mistress Holt. Perhaps you should utilize their talents for profit.”
“You make fun, Lord Sarren, but all this supposed evidence proves nothing. The girl is low-born. I am certain of it. Just look at the way she carries herself.”
“Oh, how can you be so certain?” Sarren asked.
“I say again, she doesn’t carry herself like a noble. She slouches and she’s always looking down. She doesn’t have the poise of a noble upbringing, I tell you. She’s not refined.”
“Mistress Moira, Why not bring her out again?” Lord Sarren asked.
Hana bolted from the wall and put the glass back in the kitchen. She stealthily exited out the kitchen door and through the garden. The moon was full so she could see for the most part. She ran to the edge of the woods, not sure what to do next.
“Hana, is that you?” It was Thessa’s voice.
“Thessa? Where have you been? I thought you’d wandered off!”
“You have to get out of here! They’re coming!”
“They are already here. They are having tea in the parlor.”
“What? No, they don’t drink tea or have a nice, pleasant conversations. They are not far behind me.”
“Wait, who are you talking about?”
“The blood feeders, like the ones you rescued me from. The monsters I used to run with. You have to go back to the house before it’s too late.”
The rustling coming from the trees behind Thessa indicated they were not far away. Hana turned and looked at the house and then back at the trees. “Ever get the feeling you’re doomed no matter what you do?”
“Of late, aye, I really do.”
“If I go back to the house what will you do. You’re not safe out here all alone either.”
“Hana, are you out here somewhere?”
“That’s mistress Moira,” Hana said.
“Go to her and get her back into the house. I will manage. She will be attacked out here for sure.”
“All right. You run, Thessa, and get to safety. Find me when the visitors leave…all of the visitors.”
“I will.”
“Hana?”
“I’m here, mistress Moira. I thought I heard something out here.” She ran up to Moira. Hurry, get back to the house. It might be a wild animal.”
“A wild animal! Oh dear.” Moira turned back.
Hana glanced behind her and saw Thessa disappear into the trees.
Chapter 5 – Thessa
Hana escorted Moira into the house and locked the kitchen door behind them.
“I will contact the game master tomorrow,” Moira said. “If there is a wild animal on the loose he needs to be informed.”
“It’s the woods. I doubt whatever I saw will stick around. I’m not even sure that I saw anything. The moon
is full and my eyes might have been playing tricks.”
“I will tell him, nevertheless.” She straightened her skirts. “Now, if you would accompany me into the parlor. Lord Sarren would like to have a word with you.”
Hana felt the panic sensation again. She could almost feel her heart beating in her chest. “Me. why would he want to talk to me?”
“He won’t bite you, child.” She led Hana down the hallway.
“He might.” She whispered.
In the parlor, Lord Sarren was conversing with the other two guests. Both women were giggling at his charm. “Ah, there you two are. I was about to come look for you.”
“You wish to speak with me?” Hana inquired.
“Indeed. Your accent, I can’t quite place it. Where did you say you were from?”
“I am from here, Vestia.”
“You are from this kingdom?”
“Aye, sir. I am from across the river. The village of Eil.”
“So, you come from fishermen stock?”
“Aye, I can gut and fillet a fish like no other.”
“That’s the truth, at least,” Moira said. “Her fillets are a work of art.”
Without warning, he took her arm and pricked her finger with a dress pin, drawing blood.
“Ouch!” Hana said recoiling.
“What is the meaning of this, Lord Sarren?” Moira asked, rising to her maid’s defense.
He rubbed the blood between his fingers. “Curious substance, blood. It’s life and death isn’t it.”
“Was that a statement or a question?” Hana asked.
Lord Sarren’s eyes narrowed giving him a sinister appearance. “Clever girl. I think you know which.” He raised the blood to his nose and sniffed it. “Sweet smell, good iron content. You are well fed, not a hint of malnourishment.”
“The lord and mistress are kind. They do feed me well.”
“You are a disgusting man!” Mistress Holt said.
“All right then.” The first noble woman said. “I think mistress Holt and I should go now.”
Red Mage Ascending: Book 1 of Tournament of Mages Page 3