Summers at Castle Auburn

by Sharon Shinn

  Even Darbwin, habitually cheerful, often seemed lost in melancholy thoughts from which he could not be easily shaken. I suggested we hire another barmaid, then began looking about for suitable candidates. My choice was a middle-aged widow with a curving smile and an ample body who knew how to handle herself around men. She was warmhearted, filled with laughter, and had turned away four offers of marriage that I knew about since her husband died five years ago. I was not surprised when she and Darbwin immediately struck up an easy, bantering friendship. In fact, when I had the chance, I used illicit seasonings to spice up their food—and their relationship.

  I tried to spend a couple of evenings a month out at my grandmother’s, where the turning of the season had little real effect. She and Milette were busy drying herbs and bottling up mixed potions. All the long nights meant to them were a few more hours to study by candlelight. Since I had moved into the village, Milette had grown a little friendlier to me, and we actually spent a few evenings consulting on some more arcane texts and discussing what the elixirs could possibly have been intended for. My grandmother watched the cessation of hostilities with a small smile, though she said nothing.

  The three of us celebrated the solstice together, though I did not get to the cottage till midnight, since I waited tables at the tavern till eleven. Then I hurried down the frosty roads under a grinning quarter moon to arrive, shivering and grateful, into the bright heat of my grandmother’s house. The three of us stayed up till dawn on that longest night of the year, tossing herbs into the fire and chanting the rituals that would ensure an early spring and a bountiful year. We slept till noon, then hiked into the village for the festival going on there—games, feasts, songfests, fortune-telling, and bazaars. The day was cold but exceptionally clear, and the wind had whipped color into everyone’s face, so that the whole village appeared to be full of vital, jovial folk. Indeed, Solstice Day was generally my favorite of the year for that very reason—it put everyone into a good mood, a mood of hope and expectation. From this day forward, till the very green heart of summer, the light would stay longer and the days would stretch themselves, one minute at a time, into the night. That was something to celebrate indeed.

  In the evening, I returned to my rented room, too exhausted to stay up as late as usual. There I found two packages and a letter awaiting me. The letter was a short solstice greeting from Angela with no real news. One package came from Elisandra and contained several yards of ocean blue silk. Too fine for my daily use, living as I did, but I would use it to line my new cloak and it would make me feel deeply loved.

  The other package was from Kent and contained a gold locket set with a sapphire that matched the one in the ring. His solstice greeting was also short and very traditional, wishing me health and a light heart. I looked at the locket a long time and did not know what to do with it. Ultimately I put it in a small silver box which also contained his ring, and hid the whole collection in the back of my dresser drawer. I scattered a few grains of siawort around the feet of the dresser—to distract thieves and make them turn their eyes elsewhere—and then told myself to forget the whole thing.

  WINTER PASSED WITH its usual, creaking slowness, an arthritic old lady whose only delight was to inconvenience others. Just when we thought she had been routed by the playful infant spring, she regathered her strength and blanketed us all with a wet, messy coverlet of snow. It took two days to dig out; the tavern did not even open that first day. I went into the streets with the village children and played cannonballs and targets. We were all soaked and freezing when we went back into our respective houses, wet and chilled but happy. I fell into bed early that night and slept with profound exhaustion.

  The week that spring truly arrived, we had a wedding in the village. Darbwin and the new barmaid spoke their vows in the tiny chapel, then invited all the residents to come celebrate at the tavern. I had had the responsibility of catering the dinner, which was to feed at least three hundred and for which I had enlisted the help of ten other women. The celebration went on for two full days and was followed by a week’s vacation as Darbwin closed the tavern and took his bride on a honeymoon journey. I spent the week at my grandmother’s cottage, sharing with Milette some of the recipes I had been taught for the wedding banquet. I still was not much of a cook, but the other women in the kitchen had been willing to share all their secrets. Milette, I learned from my grandmother, had been courted by a young man who lived three villages away, and she appeared to be considering what dishes she might set forth at her own wedding.

  “A boy from so far away!” I exclaimed, staring at my grandmother. She hushed me impatiently and glanced out the doorway, for she had imparted this news while she and I were inside building up the fire. Milette was in the garden, pulling weeds.

  “Well, thirty miles. It’s a trip he can easily make in a day.”

  “But—if she marries him—have you thought what will happen? All this time, you have expected her to take your place!”

  “Oh, that’s settled,” my grandmother said comfortably. “He wants to hire on at the stableyard and be an ostler.”

  “I didn’t know they were hiring at the stableyard.”

  My grandmother grinned wickedly. “Well, if they’re not, they soon will be,” she said. “Milette has no ambition to move from this village. I’ve no fear of her leaving.”

  And indeed, two weeks later, I learned that a new man had been hired at the stables. Milette’s future appeared to be settled.

  Spring brought a bumper crop of new babies. I was kept busy more nights than I could count, rushing herbal mixtures to the midwives who were hovering over panting young women in painful labor. Darbwin bought the property next to his and began building an inn to attach to the tavern. The chapel spire got knocked over in a storm and had to be rebuilt in a community effort that caused equal amounts of dissent and satisfaction.

  And nine months and one week after her wedding, my sister Elisandra rode into the village looking for me.

  18

  “Someone out front to see you,” Darbwin told me.

  “Who is it?”

  “Didn’t say. A young lady and a young man. On horseback.”

  My clients didn’t usually come from so far away that they needed to ride in, for my reputation was decidedly local. I shrugged, dried my hands on my apron, and ducked out into the sunlight.

  To see Elisandra standing beside her horse, watching the door hopefully.

  “Corie!” she cried, and flung herself into my arms. I shrieked with delight and disbelief, and hugged her, and drew back to stare at her, then shrieked and hugged her again.

  “Elisandra! What are you doing—oh, it’s so good to—why didn’t you tell me! How long can you stay?”

  Her responses were just as disjointed, and we finally drew apart, laughing and clinging to each other.

  “Tell me,” I commanded. “What are you doing here? How did you convince Matthew to let you go? How did you find me? What’s going on at court? How long can you stay?”

  “Oh—it’s so complicated—it’s so exciting—!” she exclaimed, and I thought I had never seen her so animated. She was positively radiant, happiness spilling across her face and lighting its every angle. “Matthew had watched me all this time, and, of course, I wasn’t pregnant. On the nine-month anniversary of my wedding, I told him I was coming to see you. He made a big fuss, and said how you were banned forever, and went on and on about how I had a duty to marry some man with a noble lineage. I just walked out of the room. Walked out. I’ve never done that to anyone in my life.”

  “I’m so proud of you,” I said admiringly. “How did you find the courage?”

  “I pretended I was you.”

  We both laughed. I said, “And your mother? What did she think of this little flare of rebellion?”

  “I just told her I was leaving. Packed my luggage while she paced around the room and wept. I did kiss her goodbye, but that did not calm her. So, I don’t know if she’ll actually co
me visit me.”

  “Come visit—” I paused, momentarily struck dumb by shock, then rushed on. “You mean, you’ve left? For good? You’ve come to live with me? Oh, Elisandra, how wonderful!”

  She was laughing again. “No, no, no, not with you. I’m going to Jaxon’s estate. He’s renounced his claim to it. Has declared himself legally dead.”

  “Has—” It seemed I could hardly comprehend what she was saying, let alone complete a sentence. “You’ve heard from Uncle Jaxon?”

  She nodded. “I received a letter about a week ago. It seems he’s sent copies to his steward and the local squire, as well as Matthew. In it, he renounces his citizenship, his claim on Halsing Manor, his right to inherit property from any other source, and, essentially, declares his status as a—I think he called it a ‘nonliving person.’ It was very strange.”

  “He’s gone to Alora,” I said.

  “Yes, that’s what I think, too. You should have heard Matthew ranting, but nobody else seemed surprised. Kent suggested that he might someday regret his decision and want to live among men again, but I think—”

  “Never,” I said. “He’ll never leave Alora. The stories I have heard of the place—the stories he has told himself—he’s with the aliora forever now.”

  “Which means that I’ve really and truly inherited Halsing Manor.” She gave me another quick hug. “You and I have inherited,” she amended, “because anywhere that is my home is your home, too.”

  I was thinking hard, trying to remember. “But wait. There was something odd about the entailment—I remember. You can only inherit property from Jaxon once you’re married.”

  She nodded again, a great smile spreading across her face. “I know. I’ve come here to be married. I want you to be my bridesmaid, for the second time in less than a year.”

  “Married—!” I breathed. “But to—”

  And then I thought to look to her companion, who all this while had stayed seated motionlessly upon his horse. He was not dressed in castle livery, so I had assumed he could not be one of the royal guards, sent to protect her on this most hasty of journeys. But he was, and a guard I recognized: Roderick, the prince’s personal defender.

  I felt my mouth drop open in astonishment.

  “I know you realize what a wonderful man he is, for he has told me of your great friendship with each other,” Elisandra’s voice was saying, faint and faraway in my ear. I could not stop staring at Roderick, who gazed back at me with absolutely no expression on his face. “Whoever else scoffs at me, I know you will understand.”

  I made an effort to shut my mouth, and I looked back at Elisandra. “But how did this come about?” I asked stupidly. “I never even saw you together. You never mentioned his name.”

  She was blushing prettily; she looked as sweet and lovestruck as any village girl. “We went riding that one time—you and I—and you fell off your horse. You remember that day?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “And Roderick had come riding with us, and he saved your life.”

  I glanced once more, sideways, at the silent guard. I was ready to swear now that the slightest smile played across his lips, but still he sat quietly upon his horse and did not speak. “Well,” I said, “he did carry me back to the castle. As for saving my life—”

  “And that fall he traveled with Bryan and me to Tregonia. He was so alert and careful on the road that I always felt safe with him beside us. And he saved Bryan’s life that one time—and he was so brave and thoughtful when Andrew was captured. Oh, there are so many times he has done such wonderful things!”

  It was becoming clearer to me as she spoke. Roderick had a country charm to him, that I would absolutely admit, and it was true that the more I had come to know him, the more I had liked him. No doubt it had been the same with Elisandra. I just had not been able to picture the first few meetings, the chance encounters, the unexpected conversations that had sparked interest, then affection, then passion, between these two most unlikely lovers. But once the affair had begun—oh, I could see it well enough.

  “And then, I suppose, once he was made Bryan’s personal guard, you saw him every day—” I mused.

  “Every day. In every setting. And day after day, week after week, he exhibited such strength, such nobility of character, that I could not help but fall in love with him.”

  I sent another sideways glance in Roderick’s direction. He was definitely grinning now, though he tried to wipe the expression off his face when he caught my gaze. I tilted my head and watched him a moment. “So, I suppose Daria was acting as a courier on your behalf when she brought him notes and remembrances,” I said. “I suspected the maid.”

  Elisandra laughed. “No—you didn’t! You thought Daria was flirting with Roderick?”

  “It seemed a more logical explanation than the truth.”

  She came a step closer and put her hand on my arm. “But Corie—you understand, don’t you? Nothing in the world will change my mind, nothing will change my heart, but I—If I do not have your support and your approval—it means so much to me that you accept him, accept us, stand up with us on our wedding day—”

  I laughed out loud and held my hand out to my new brother-in-law-to-be. “I prefer him one hundred times over Prince Bryan!” I said gaily. “There is no one I would rather give you to than him.”

  Elisandra actually squealed in my ear and clutched tight at my arm. This was the signal Roderick had been waiting for. He swung down from his horse and came over to me in three quick strides.

  “I’m happy to see you, Lady Corie,” he murmured, and lifted me off the ground in one brief, bone-snapping hug. “Yours was the only opinion that mattered.”

  “That’s a first in my life,” I said breathlessly when he set me on my feet. “Now! Come inside for a drink. We have a wedding to plan.”

  DARBWIN WAS MOST interested to meet my sister—as was everyone else within earshot. They all knew my history and my lineage, of course. So, once I pronounced her name, everyone in the tavern knew that the prince’s widow was sitting nearby, having run off with a commoner. It was just the sort of news to make every yeoman in the eight provinces feel pride in his own virility, so Roderick and Elisandra were instantly the most popular couple on the premises. There was no hope of planning a wedding or even holding a conversation in private, but Elisandra, that most regal of women, did not seem to mind. She nodded as the serving girls debated wedding attire and the farmers conferred about the best venue and the innkeeper’s wife suggested a reception feast which featured squirrel stew as its primary component. Elisandra’s cheeks richened with color, her eyes sparkled with mischievous laughter, and her rare, delicate laugh filtered through the smoky air of the tavern more times than I could count.

  “You’ll be needing a few days off, then, to plan this affair,” Darbwin said late in the evening, when we were both back in the kitchen at the same time. I have to confess, I was feeling a bit disoriented by this time—too many surprises, too many changed reference points.

  “Yes—I suppose—except I don’t think they’re in any mood to wait. A day or so, maybe, and then I think they want to be wed.”

  “Copley will wed them any day they say—that’s no problem,” Darbwin said, dismissing the first of my many concerns. Copley, the village priest, was a great friend of Darbwin’s, despite the fact that the tavern owner was a complete heathen. “They’ll need a place to stay for their wedding night, of course, and Jake’s inn is full up with the traveling season begun again.”

  “I know,” I said worriedly. “They could have my room, I suppose, though it’s small for two. I could sleep out at my grandmother’s.”

  “You could bed down here in the kitchen if it came to that, but it won’t,” Darbwin said. “I’ve got two rooms completely framed in on the new inn. Windows aren’t in, but we can cover the holes with good heavy quilts, and build up the fire real nice. Bring in a bed from my house, just for the night—they’ll be all snug and cosy. Not a soul aro
und to bother them, either, which is just what they’ll be wanting on their wedding night.”

  I thought for a moment of Elisandra’s first wedding, an affair attended by so much pageantry that Darbwin would not believe it if I recounted half of the details now. I thought of the bridal couple’s royal suite, the furnishings of the room hand-carved by master carpenters, the curtains made of velvet, the marble floor covered in exotic fur. I thought of the noble lords who had toasted her health, the noble ladies who had wept over her good fortune, the soldiers who had guarded her rest.

  I thought of the secret poison racing through her husband’s blood, malicious enough to mark him for death almost as soon as he had swallowed it.

  Then I thought of Darbwin’s unfinished village inn, quilts on the windows for curtains, an old mattress for a matrimonial bed.

  “It will be perfect,” I told him. “Thank you so much for offering.”

  IT WAS, IN fact, a simply charming wedding, held outdoors in the market green because the weather was so fine. Every soul in the village turned out for the event—because this was a rare match indeed!—and stayed afterward to participate in the ring-toss games and drinking contests and other customary entertainment. Even Milette and my grandmother had walked into town to see the proceedings for themselves.

  Elisandra wore one of my old dresses, hastily fancied up with ruffles of antique lace by my landlady, the seamstress. Roderick wore a dark jacket supplied by Darbwin and a fine cotton shirt that he produced himself. The priest, Copley, a bit intimidated by his unexpected commission, spoke his prayers and masses in an almost inaudible tone; but both the bride and groom gave their responses in firm, cheerful voices. When the ceremony concluded, Roderick snatched Elisandra up in his arms, swung her around in three wide circles, and then kissed her heartily. The audience cheered.

  After the congratulations and the feasting and the games and the toasts, they retired to Darbwin’s unfinished inn and made themselves truly husband and wife. I had wondered, watching them the past two days, if they had not in fact already taken that final physical step sometime on the road from Auburn—or even before—but I did not ask Elisandra. There were still questions that that happy, carefree woman would not answer.