The Women's War

by Jenna Glass

  The water rippled and splashed as Tynthanal closed the small distance between them and reached for her wimple. Chanlix started to jerk away, then forced herself to hold still as he carefully removed the pins that held the wimple in place. She should be telling him no in no uncertain terms—she knew him well enough by now to believe he would obey—but somehow that wasn’t what she was doing.

  Tynthanal pulled the wimple from her head and tossed the sodden length of fabric onto the shore beside their shoes.

  “There,” he said in a low murmur. “That’s better, isn’t it?”

  Just then a faint breeze blew by, cooling the sweat that had pooled at the back of her neck. She had not felt the delicious kiss of the wind on her nape since she’d donned the red robes, a lifetime ago. “Yes, it is,” she answered hoarsely, then cleared her throat and put a more respectable distance between them. It was becoming harder and harder to deny to herself that Tynthanal was flirting with her—as impossible as that was to comprehend—but she could not allow either of them to fall into temptation. No matter his near-exile, he was still a king’s son, and she would not have been a fit companion for him even before she’d become an abigail.

  “Now my wimple is off, and you may start talking,” she said briskly. He cocked his head at her, and she knew he was debating whether to continue pressing. She was not sure if she was more relieved or disappointed when he chose to allow her to divert him.

  “We had visitors this morning,” he said.

  “Yes. I noticed.” A trio of riders had ridden into the encampment and met with Tynthanal and his second-in-command. The visit had struck her as curious, and perhaps just a little concerning. “What did they want?”

  “They came from Miller’s Bridge.”

  Chanlix remembered the little town that had been the last settlement they’d passed through on their journey to the new Abbey.

  “Are they hoping to send some more women out to us?” she asked, though she frowned at her own question. The Abbey was meant only for noblewomen, though the occasional wealthy merchant’s wife or daughter found herself banished there. Miller’s Bridge was on the edge of nowhere, hardly the sort of place where nobles or high-class merchants resided. “Or were they hoping the Abbey was open for business?”

  Chanlix couldn’t imagine the men of Miller’s Bridge would be so desperate for paid sex that they would ride half a day out to a rough settlement in the desert to spend their hard-earned wages.

  “Neither,” Tynthanal said with a delighted grin. “As you know, I sent some of my men to the town to replenish our supplies, and they mentioned that we had found a Well that produces feminine elements. The mayor of Miller’s Bridge is hoping we can come to an agreement to trade potions for additional supplies and manpower. With the help of experienced frontier builders, we can put up actual houses instead of one-room cabins and lean-tos, and we can eventually retire our little tent village altogether. And with our potions, Miller’s Bridge can finally grow enough of their own food to not be so dependent on imported supplies.”

  Chanlix bit her lip, for it certainly sounded like an advantageous arrangement for both sides. The elements were so abundant at this Well—and the water so mineral rich—that a single abigail could produce dozens of vials of simple growth potions in a day. But it would be a most unorthodox arrangement, and the Abbey would not have the kind of taxable revenue the trade minister would expect from them. Assuming he expected them to generate any revenue at all out here where there was supposed to be nothing.

  “What did you tell him?” she asked.

  “I told him I would discuss it with you and we would give him an answer within a week.”

  She gave him a startled look, though perhaps she should not have been surprised. He was as unlike his half-brother as it was possible to be, and it would never have occurred to him to impose his own will on the women of the Abbey without consulting their abbess. Regardless of the harsh reality that she had no official power to make any such decision.

  “I see no reason why any of us should live in shared tents and makeshift cabins when we can so easily make arrangements for better accommodations,” he said. “Not when it will cost us so little.”

  Chanlix curled her toes into the sandy bottom of the spring. “I don’t imagine the king sent us out here with the idea that we should live in comfort and ease.”

  Tynthanal snorted. “He can hardly expect us to ignore the resources available to us, no matter how unexpected they might be.”

  The king himself was not Chanlix’s true concern, as Tynthanal clearly knew. Her most immediate concern was the trade minister, who would certainly object to anything he perceived as lost revenue. The Abbey’s potions were meant to be sold, not bartered.

  “Just how many growth potions can you be expected to sell?” Tynthanal asked. “Surely nothing close to the number you can produce with our resources. You could produce enough to fuel every farm and garden in Seven Wells and still have crates full of the stuff—to the point that it would have very little monetary value. If the trade minister should learn that you’ve bartered potions and objects, I will happily pay the taxes for you. It isn’t as if I have much other use for my money out here.”

  “If the trade minister learns?”

  Tynthanal shrugged. “I see no reason why my reports should contain information about the day-to-day running of the Abbey. And it seems unlikely the trade minister would be overly interested in the workings of a frontier town like Miller’s Bridge. How would he know about a few bartered potions, unless you chose to report them yourself?”

  Chanlix shifted uncomfortably, for while she could hardly argue Tynthanal’s logic, she could not but think it was a dangerous game.

  “If you would like me to pay your taxes on those potions, I will do it,” Tynthanal said. “The labor and supplies will benefit me and my men as much as it will benefit you and your abigails. But it seems to me in all of our best interests to downplay the importance of this Well for as long as we can. We can build of our exile an advantage, and the more established we become, the harder we will be to dislodge if and when the Crown should want to do so. But I will leave the final decision to you.”

  Chanlix took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. The king had sent her and her abigails to this new Abbey with the express command that they undo Mother Brynna’s spell, which she doubted anyone believed they could accomplish. Eventually, they would be punished for their failure—unless they had somehow made themselves vital to Aaltah’s needs, which would take time.

  “I’ll make the potions myself,” she said. “If this decision causes us trouble, it will be entirely on my head.”

  “No, it will not,” Tynthanal said softly, then splashed his way loudly out of the spring so that he might pretend not to hear her response.

  * * *

  —

  Alys was shocked at how wan and pale Shelvon looked. Her face was never exactly lively or full of color, but now her skin had an almost translucent hue, and there were dark circles like bruises under her eyes. Alys’s heart ached for the young woman even as she struggled with her own fear of what it meant. Certainly it did not appear that Shelvon was suddenly flourishing in her marriage to Delnamal, with a happy announcement soon on the way.

  Hiding her own distress as best she could, Alys smiled at her sister-in-law, clasping her hands and kissing her on both cheeks. Shelvon’s hands were shockingly cold, although the Rose Room was comfortably warm.

  As the two women sat by the fire, Alys decided not to pretend she couldn’t see the decline in Shelvon’s health. “Are you well?” she asked with a worried frown.

  Shelvon smiled tremulously. “My husband has been combing the city to find fertility potions that were left behind when the Abbey was moved. There aren’t very many to be found, but he’s been quite resourceful. Unfortunately, they keep me up at night.” Her eyelids droo
ped. “I can’t remember the last time I had a full night’s sleep.”

  Alys wasn’t surprised to hear it. Every fertility spell she had learned from her mother’s book included the element Shel, which was usually associated with energy and stamina. There being no official study of feminine elements and women’s magic, no one had quite figured out why Shel was necessary, but from what Alys had read, the potions were useless without it. It was not at all uncommon for a woman taking fertility potions to have trouble sleeping. Which was usually not a problem, since the potions were fast-acting and effective under ordinary circumstances. Women rarely required more than two or three doses, and if they did require more, they either couldn’t conceive at all or couldn’t carry the infant to term.

  “How many have you taken?” Alys asked gently, but she knew it was more than two or three.

  “Enough that I should be pregnant by now.” Shelvon touched her belly. “Of course without an abigail here to examine me, there’s no way to know for sure whether I am or not.”

  Alys didn’t think there was much uncertainty in the matter at all. Surely her mother’s spell—a spell that shook the whole world, created a new Well, and changed the appearance of Rho itself—could not be circumvented by a potion any novice abigail could create.

  Shelvon forced a smile and pointedly changed the subject. “How goes the search for a husband for Jinnell?”

  Alys’s shoulders drooped. “It seems I underestimated the effect my mother’s spell would have on Jinnell’s prospects.”

  Shelvon winced in sympathy. “I had hoped that would not be the case.”

  “I’ve received several very polite letters that simply said that marriage negotiations were already underway when I know for certain it’s not true. And quite a number of people have failed to respond at all. Perhaps they’re hoping I will think a flier got lost in transit and therefore not be insulted.”

  “What about Lord Tamzin?”

  “I received a letter from Queen Ellinsoltah,” Alys said. That had been a very different sort of letter, nowhere near as impersonal as the other responses she had received. Alys had immediately liked the other woman, even though her response had not been in the affirmative. “She said she did not believe my daughter and Lord Tamzin were compatible.”

  In fact, she had said a great deal more than that, but most of it was private. The queen was not rejecting Jinnell and seemed to bear no ill will toward her or Alys despite the devastating effect the spell had had on her family. What she had told Alys in strictest confidence was that Tamzin did not live up to his stellar reputation. The picture she had painted of the man as an ambitious, mean-spirited conniver had certainly not meshed with his public image. Alys had no good reason to trust the word of a woman she had never met, but she was inclined to do it anyway. Not that the explanation mattered near as much as the refusal itself.

  “Perhaps I needn’t worry about Delnamal sending her to Prince Waldmir,” she said with a wry smile. “Perhaps he, too, will disdain her for her parentage.”

  It seemed an odd thing to hope, but then in Alys’s opinion, there were worse fates in life than being unmarried, and being married to Prince Waldmir was one of them.

  “I wouldn’t count on it,” Shelvon said. “Jinnell is young and lovely and has an attractive dowry. As you may have noticed, my father considers marriage a temporary inconvenience. Even if he thinks her the granddaughter of a witch, he would likely be happy to have her until he tires of her or she becomes inconvenient.”

  “But he needs an heir, doesn’t he? And thanks to my mother’s spell, he needs a willing wife to provide him with one. Surely despite his reputation, he could find a woman who would happily provide him an heir for the prestige of being his wife.” Not that Alys could understand the type of woman who would sell herself in marriage like that. What good were social standing and money when your husband treated you like cattle and could destroy your life—even have you executed—on a whim? And yet she knew they were out there.

  Shelvon shook her head. “You’ve never met my father. He has always believed himself a prize catch. My mother once told me she cried all the way to the altar and begged him to release her from the contract. And the whole time he smiled at her and assured her that she was the luckiest woman in all of Seven Wells.” Shelvon’s expression was usually so kind and mild that the fierceness that flashed in her eyes took Alys by surprise. “When she tried to poison him, he was genuinely shocked that she was that desperate to escape the marriage. He has no concept of what other people—especially women—think of him.”

  Alys wondered if Prince Waldmir had any idea how much his usually calm and placid daughter hated him. The look in Shelvon’s eyes said just how sorry she was that her mother’s assassination attempt had failed.

  For all the troubles Alys had had with her own father after the divorce, it was nothing compared to what Shelvon must have gone through. How could a woman bear to even look at her father when he’d had her mother put to death? It was a strange irony that because her father had executed her mother rather than divorcing her, Shelvon was his only legitimate child. And it was because none of his wives had given him sons that he kept discarding them.

  “So if my father offers him Jinnell,” Alys said, “he will convince himself that she will provide him with children no matter how obvious it is to everyone else that she will do no such thing?”

  Shelvon nodded. “I’m sure of it. Sometimes I think he believes he could tell the sun to stop shining and it would obey. You have to find another husband for Jinnell, just in case the potions fail.” She rubbed her belly once more, as if force of will could make it swell with child. “What about Zarsha of Nandel? Have you had an answer from him?”

  “I haven’t contacted him yet,” she admitted. “I left him as something of a last resort. Jinnell understands the gravity of the situation, but she does not want to go to Nandel.”

  Shelvon blinked at her as if she’d said something completely baffling. “You’ve discussed this with Jinnell?”

  “Yes, of course. Why do you look so shocked?”

  “Is that considered…normal here?”

  Alys was fully aware that customs in Nandel were very different from those of Aaltah, and that women had even fewer choices there. She had not realized, however, that a girl expressing a preference for her marriage would somehow seem outside of normal.

  “Well, the parents have the final say, of course,” she said, “but it’s certainly not out of the ordinary to at least ask our daughters what they want.”

  Shelvon looked awed by this information. “I’ve been here more than a year, and I still find myself occasionally surprised by things I didn’t know. I was told that I was to marry Delnamal after the contract had been signed and arrangements for my travel had already been made. I don’t even know if there were any other suitors.”

  Alys shuddered at the thought. Women had so little control of their own lives here in Aaltah, it was hard to credit that they had even less elsewhere in the world. “And there’s a very good reason not to send Jinnell to Nandel.”

  “But marriage to Zarsha would be highly preferable to marriage to my father. You should at least contact him and see if he’s interested. Maybe arrange to meet him to see for yourself if he’s the kind of man you want for your daughter.”

  Alys had the sinking feeling she was running out of options.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The temperature had plummeted overnight, and though Ellin longed for the calming solitude of a long walk through the gardens, she settled for a much more constrained—and comfortable—walk through the solarium instead. The sun beaming through the glass walls had warmed the room to a temperature both plants and people found pleasing, and there was a certain enjoyment in looking at the ice-frosted trees outside while being comfortably warm.

  Solitude was a rare luxury for Ellin now that she wa
s queen. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed it until she’d stolen that first walk in the garden; now she insisted on carving out at least thirty minutes each day to being both awake and alone. As her secretary, Graesan found her insistence on this quiet time inconvenient, but despite his grumbling, he always seemed to find time in her day for everything that needed doing.

  By now, all the advisers and aides and servants of the palace were clear that she was not to be disturbed during her quiet time for anything less than a dire emergency. Unfortunately, Zarsha of Nandel was neither official adviser, aide, nor servant, and as she finished her first circuit around the solarium, she found him standing in the entryway, flanked by two members of her honor guard who had evidently refused to let him in.

  Zarsha bowed elegantly. “Forgive my interruption, Your Majesty,” he said as he rose, “but I was wondering if I could have a moment of your time.”

  Ellin suppressed a groan. She wanted to protect this little block of solitude she’d carved out for herself, but if Zarsha wished to speak to her, he no doubt had something important to discuss.

  “It’s nothing urgent,” he assured her, “but your secretary seems to think you will not have time for me until at least next week, so I thought I’d ask.”

  Ellin sighed. The one person at court who seemed completely impervious to Zarsha’s charm was Graesan, and she suspected he’d have trouble fitting her former intended into a day when she had no appointments whatsoever. While she had long ago stopped blaming Zarsha for the forced engagement, the same could not be said of Graesan.

  “We can talk now,” she said, “as long as you don’t mind walking. I spend far too much of my day sitting still.”

  Zarsha smiled and gave her another half bow. “Of course. Shall we?”

  He gallantly offered his elbow, for all the world like they were courting again. If you could call what they’d once had courtship. Ellin hesitated just a second—long enough for Zarsha to notice, but not long enough to be insulting—before slipping her hand into the crook of his elbow. Graesan would find the contact overfamiliar, though it was well within the bounds of court etiquette.