Page 33 of Elvenbred

“Now that my contract is up, any man I fancy for a husband won’t have me. And any man who wants me … probably already has a wife.” Nora took a deep breath. “I can’t have a child out of wedlock, as birth records require both parents’ bloodlines to avoid inbreeding, and if I do, then it’s a scandal as the father has to take food out of the mouths of his rightful child and wife to give to me. Best I could hope for is a wealthy lord who wants a mistress … but still no child, for threat of a challenge to his trueborn heirs.”

“So, I’m giving away the rations I earned, a few at a time, to those who really need them … the mothers whose husbands died defending the walls, the low-birth workers who can barely feed themselves, much less their children.”

Triana kept silent, unsure of how to respond. Her initial thought had been poor peoples’ problems, but that was tactless. She was grateful for two idiot brothers, her brainless daredevils whose fondness for risk-taking and alcohol put her in rare control over her own destiny. All she had needed to do was keep the bar well stocked, and let nature take its course. With a small assist from a cut bellyband. So, perhaps she hadn’t been completely uninvolved in their deaths.

“Well, I’m sorry,” Triana said, “someone is passing up a fine woman.” She knew the words were trite and a shameless pander. Kind words remained a foreign land for her, one rarely visited. Still, Nora’s story sounded just so damned elven. Always about appearances. The facts never mattered as long as the appearances were kept up.

Triana made a little pursing-motion with her mouth, determined to say something besides a platitude, so she went with that thought. “It’s always about appearances isn’t it?” she tried again. “It doesn’t matter whether you can bear a child, or be any good at being its mother, even with the food business settled. For me, it doesn’t matter whether I am any good at running my estate, the moment I let a betrothed into my marriage bed, he owns everything that is mine by birth, and he manages it all the way he wants, whether that impoverishes us or enriches us. I go from being a lord in my own right to someone’s lady, and if he wishes, he can expel me.” She gave a cynical snort, “So, I am the most eligible elven lord in the land right now, I suspect.”

She caught Nora’s eye in her gaze, and held it steady. She let the casual banter drop.

“For us, the titles, the ‘long titles’ as you so flippantly put it, are our way of keeping score. They nail down who owns what. I am V’dann Triana Lord Falcion. My family has held those lands since my grandfather’s time, he who came from Evelon and founded the line. Falcion is my holding as recognized by the Council, descended from sire and grandsire in line unbroken for over nine hundred years. Lord means I hold it in my own name. Not as a wedding gift from a husband, that can be taken away or taken back the moment he loses interest or I fail to please. Falcion is skiving well mine, by right, and by birth. It is in my blood and my blood is in it.”

Both of Nora’s eyebrows went up. Triana’s speech had given her time to rally. “Nine hundred years? In sooth? Your family has held it for nine centuries?”

“Yes,” Triana replied. “Nine centuries. When do I go back?”

Nora paused long enough, and glanced away, unwilling to hold Triana’s gaze. At that moment, Triana had her answer. You don’t. Triana waited to hear what mealy-mouthed response Nora would give her to try and sugar that one over. Triana had already been gone close to two, what was the word … eight-days … she’d been here two eight-days.

Triana knew her kith and kin. It would be just a matter of time before word got out that Lord Triana had gone missing, and shortly after the scavengers would begin to circle her estates. Too soon after that some jumped-up crony of Aelmarkin’s would plant his beautifully spell-sculpted fundament on her High Seat. Unless Kyndrath called the estate forfeit and doled it out to one of his cronies, or took it for himself. Triana worked to keep the frustration at bay, and bit down hard, grinding her teeth so that she didn’t start raging at Nora.

Nora took her time replying, shaping an answer. Triana could watch the calculations behind Nora’s eyes. Enough of an answer to keep hope alive, not enough to set an expectation, and nothing within an arrow shot of a promise.

Nora picked up her cup. Triana let the silence build, and the tension.

“Well,” Nora said at last, “I really couldn’t say. I know Haldeen is the Gatemaster, and this is his area of specialty, and he’s very interested in your case.”

Triana didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. That’s the best you could come up with? She raised her own skeptical eyebrow. Nora took the bait.

“Well, the accidental circumstance that brought you here. He’s trying to figure out how to re-create it.”

Triana nearly opened her mouth to scoff. There was nothing accidental about it! Triana read the tell again, saw the untruth, then a slight widening, a tiny smile of triumph. She had given away her own reaction!

Triana realized Nora had turned the tables on her, and baited her in. This was why they were here, why Nora had brought her from the house, and on the excursion, in the public place with the noise and the bustle. Then, Nora had worked the topic around to sensitive subjects to raise her emotions, and even the hot sauce had played a part, to distract and divide her attention. Nora had brought her away from what Triana assumed were Haldeen’s prying eyes and ears, to ask her that one question. And the one unguarded moment, before Triana locked her tongue away, gave Nora her answer, for whatever it was worth to her. Why would it matter to Nora if she had come here by accident or been kidnapped?

Because the answer is worth something to someone else, of course. Money—I mean, rations—power, leverage. The same games of power are played here as they are at home. I shouldn’t be surprised. We’re the same people after all, even though we don’t look much alike anymore. Nora is still playing for that husband and child, and she’s looking for something else to stake for it. Information on me.

“Of course,” Triana answered, widening her eyes to look guileless, and putting just a hint of a smile on her lips. “Obviously it was an accident. I certainly wouldn’t have”—she paused—“gone somewhere that there was something I knew was an unstable contrivance.”

Nora looked cool and politely sympathetic, but that expression stopped at the eyes. Honors felt about even. Nora had confirmed to Triana what she suspected, that Haldeen would hold her as long as he could. In exchange, Nora had learned that what Haldeen was doing was different than what he had told her. Triana pondered this while she sipped her cold tea. She glanced up and met Nora’s measuring eye. Nora smiled, the tiniest of smiles. She returned it. They understood each other perfectly.

I’m trapped here, unless I can figure out how to get home.

8

N

Triana waited with growing impatience for Lord Haldeen’s estate to settle in for the evening. The larger moon had already risen, a disquieting green when seen through the city’s shield. She’d hoped to be out of her room and be well away before it rose. The fact that Haldeen’s servants were not keeping reasonable hours was powerfully interfering with her plans. Staying up half the night! You have work in the morning! Go to sleep! A pair of elves close to her window did the most to test her patience. He had a jug of wine, and designs upon her, whilst she appeared primarily focused on the wine, and avoiding taking things any further. They did the dance of flirting and drinking, with her giving him just enough encouragement to keep his hopes up and the wine flowing, while he hoped her resistance would fall with the volume of wine in the jug. Listening to the back and forth, Triana had her money on the lass. She hoped either his wine or her will would fail, and they would take the slap and tickle somewhere else.

At least the guard no longer darkened her door. He had been reassigned at some point during her illness. She expected they would have put some kind of detectors or monitors in her room to take his place, but so far she had not found them. She had briefly considered that they were inept, and hadn’t done it, then corrected herself. Better to assume that they had her under constant observation, certainly by sound, and probably by sight.

She had seen that the elves here considered illusions here to be children’s games, so they might not be prepared for someone who excelled at that discipline of spellcraft. The web of illusions she’d planned would cover her absence from most any inspection that didn’t involve actually touching. She did consider that she might be wrong, and they would see through the skein of illusions. In that event, the alarm would go up, she would be caught, and she very seriously doubted she would be returned to this room.

Lying on her side in her bed, she built up the first of her craftings. First, her own self … appearing asleep, with her hair askew, curled on her right side, and face squashed against the pillow. She moved her lips soundlessly, whispering into the pillow, repeating and reinforcing the images. She built up her first mirage, layer by layer, laying the illusion just above herself, so that she could, if careful, slip out from under it, and leaving the illusion intact. She had to proceed carefully, always assuming that she had a watcher, so the illusion could not just be dropped in. It had to creep in, like fog, and on little cat feet. This required time and patience, neither of which she had in abundance.

Still, when it was done, Triana lay there, just below her illusionary form. She added sound, a soft snore that repeated at intervals. She kept her illusion’s face buried in the pillow, so she did not have work to match sound to mouth movements … usually the giveaway. With her form complete, she built up the rest of the illusion’s fabric, building the warp and weft on the side of the bed nearest to the alcove with the chamberpot, lit by the faint glow of a single weak mage-light.

She listened for a moment as a guard made his rounds, and sent the lovers packing. Triana smiled. The unseen girl had timed it well, leaving enough wine for her beau so that he didn’t have to take the resentful dregs, and ending the evening with a promise … if only the guard hadn’t come right when he did!