Jelena looked up to find that her feet had carried her to the stables without any conscious direction on her part. She thought about going in and choosing a suitable mount, but a voice called out her name from behind. She turned to see Aneko striding briskly towards her.
“ Jelena, have you seen Kami? She was supposed to report back here after everything was finished.” The older woman looked as if she had just come from the bath house. Her dark hair hung wet and sleek to the middle of her muscular back, shining like an otter’s pelt in the sunlight. Her face wore a look of mild annoyance, as if a harmless but none too amusing practical joke had just been played upon her.
“ Kami is with Gendan. She told me tell you so you would not look. They went off…uh, to old circle stones.”
“ Ai, Goddess, that girl! She promised she’d take my shift if I traded with her so she could watch the bridal party,” Aneko grumbled. “I can’t very well complain to Gendan, now can I? She’s going to get herself knocked up long before her wedding day if this keeps on.”
“ What is ‘knocked up’? Oh, yes. Pregnant?”
“ You are learning Siri-dar very fast,” Aneko said, nodding approvingly. “Soon, you’ll be able to curse with the best of us.”
“ Is pregnant before marriage bad thing here?” Jelena asked.
Aneko shrugged. “Uhhh, it’s not what most women would choose, but it happens. There’s no shame in it…not much, anyway. If it happens to you, Jelena, no one will think the worse of you.”
Jelena looked down at her dusty sandals, hoping that Aneko could not see her chagrin. “I…I was going to choose horse…for me, for riding as messenger.”
“ C’mon, then. I’ll help you.” Aneko smiled and started towards the stable doors. Jelena followed, still clenched a little inside.
Like a hidden message woven into the fabric of metaphors that made up a poem, the meaning behind Aneko’s words could be gleaned with just a bit of conscious thought.
If it happens to me. If I bear Ashinji a child, there won’t be any shame in it. No shame, perhaps, but no celebrations, either.
Chapter 20
The slowly dying sun set the ancient stones of Amsara Castle ablaze with crimson light. Long, dark shadows of towers and walls stretched like questing fingers across the plain below.
Magnes looked skyward to where the fortress squatted atop its rocky perch and felt a sharp twinge of anxiety deep in his gut. The first lamps of evening flared to life on the walls above, shining like stars drawn down from the heavens. Below, at the base of the hill, people made their way home to Amsara village after a long day in the fields. Herdsmen drove cattle into milking sheds and sheep into pens. Their shouts and whistled signals to their dogs pierced the still, sweet air.
Magnes drummed his heels against the flanks of his horse but the animal-weary from the trek south out of Alasiri-stubbornly refused to walk any faster. And so, slowly, but steadily, the elf-bred horse carried Magnes back to his father’s house.
He knew the castle guard would have already spotted him some time ago, before the light of day had failed completely, but in the twilight of evening, they would be unable to identify him until he arrived at the gates. He had changed back into the clothes he had worn out of Amsara, so as to give no clue to where he had been these past weeks. Castle folk would be curious enough about his sudden return.
After riding up a series of switchbacks, Magnes reined in the horse at the main gates, which were shut tight for the night. The animal blew noisily and shook its head, then heaved a sigh. Magnes patted its sweat-darkened neck and waited.
A few moments passed before a small square hole opened up in the center of a door set within the gate itself. A pale blur flashed across the opening, and Magnes heard a startled exclamation, followed by loud exhortations to open the door and be quick about it.
The portal swung inward. Magnes dismounted and led the horse through, only to find himself surrounded by excited guardsmen, all talking at once. Someone took the reins from his hand and led the horse away. Another man asked if he wanted a drink. All welcomed him home, and none asked where he had been. They knew better.
“ I think I should go to my father now,” he said, and the men respectfully fell back.
At the entrance to the keep, Magnes paused for a moment, then pushed open the door and stepped over the threshold. His eyes immediately swung left to scan the great hearth. The flickering light of the lamps cast dancing shadows across the cold stones of the dead fireplace. The hearth lay bare.
Ghost was not in his usual place.
Magnes swallowed hard and decided that he would deal with that later. For now, he had to stay totally focused on how he planned to handle his father.
Duke Teodorus always insisted that the family gather together this one time during the day to eat and discuss family business. Magnes pulled the keep door closed and headed for the great hall.
The sound of multiple voices alerted him to the presence of guests in the great hall this night. Magnes halted just outside the door to gather his wits. He had no wish to face his father in front of an audience, but this particular confrontation could not wait. The door stood slightly ajar. He put an eye to the crack and surveyed the room.
Duke Teodorus occupied his rightful place at the head of the main table. Thessalina sat to his left, dressed in her usual brown and black leathers. To her left sat Father Nath, Amsara’s resident priest. To the duke’s right, in the chair usually reserved for Magnes, slouched the corpulent Lord Taceo, a minor noble and one of Duke Teodorus’s vassals. Taceo’s equally rotund wife had wedged herself into the chair on her husband’s right.
Father Nath had just made a comment about the divisions in the Soldaran Imperial Council over the empress’s plans for war, when Magnes pushed open the door and stepped into the room.
All conversation ceased. Everything, including the very air itself, seemed frozen, as if time had stopped. The sound of his own heartbeat roared thunderously in Magnes’s ears.
“ Gods…Magnes, you’re back!” Thessalina exclaimed, shattering the spell.
“ Hello, Father,” Magnes said. His feet had mysteriously grown roots that now anchored him to the rush- strewn floor. He could not move.
Duke Teodorus slowly lowered his wine goblet and wiped his mouth on a cloth. His face was still, as inscrutable as that of a stone sphinx guarding a desert temple. His icy blue stare fastened onto his son with chilling intensity.
The tension in the room hung as thick as congealed blood. Nobody dared move or speak, not even Thessalina, whose quick eyes darted from her father’s face to her brother’s, then back again.
At last, when Magnes thought he could bear it no longer, the duke spoke.
“ Tell me, Daughter,” he drawled. “What should be done with a son who steals another man’s property, runs out on a legal marriage contract, and brings disgrace to himself and his family?”
“ Father, I…I,” Thessalina stammered, for once at a loss for words.
The roots loosened their hold, and Magnes took a step forward. “Father, please just listen to…”
“
