to our men if they could hear us,” the young woman said with a chuckle. “Will you tell my brother?”
“I don’t know. Would you mind if I did? I am curious to learn more about this sorcerer. Perhaps I could lift the curse.”
“Have you magic, then?” Sirvat inquired politely.
“I am half-faerie,” Lara explained, “and aye, I do have magic.”
“Who is this?” a voice demanded.
Lara looked up to see a woman with dark red hair. Behind her were two others, both dark-haired.
“Lara, these are my brother’s women, Uma, Alcippe and Felda. This is Lara, a woman of Hetar. She is Magnus’s guest.”
“His new lover, you mean, Sirvat,” the red-haired woman said sharply. She glared at Lara. “You are, aren’t you?”
“And are you?” Lara said haughtily.
“I am Uma, the Dominus’s favorite of his favored women,” came the reply.
“No longer, I think,” Lara said softly.
Uma looked outraged. She tried to speak but no words came out.
The two brunettes, one tall and slender, the other petite with a sweet face, giggled. They seemed pleased that Uma was upset. Interesting, Lara thought.
“You are being rude, Uma,” Sirvat said. “Who my brother takes pleasures with is not your affair. Consider yourself fortunate to have attracted him, and to be living in the castle of the Dominus. You could find yourself back on the auction block.”
“Ohhhh,” the two brunettes gasped in unison.
“You are not my mistress!” Uma snapped.
“No, I am not,” Sirvat said. “I am the sister of the Dominus, and run his household. If you persist in your rudeness I will speak with Magnus.”
“Hah!” Uma said. “He cannot hear us. How will you communicate such a complex request to him?”
“He hears Lara,” Sirvat said with a wicked smile. “She is not Terahn, but Hetarian. We have never known a woman from Hetar before, but she is now here, and he can indeed hear her voice.” She laughed at the look of surprise on Uma’s face.
“I hate you!” Uma said, and she ran from the chamber.
“Can the lord Dominus really hear your voice? I am Alcippe,” the taller girl said.
“Yes, he can,” Lara told her. “Both he and Captain Corrado were very surprised.”
“Uma is very haughty,” the smaller girl noted. “I am Felda. She thinks she has such favor with the lord Dominus that she can do what she wants.”
“But she cannot,” Sirvat said with emphasis. “Felda, dear, will you see a servant prepares a comfortable chamber for Lara? The empty one next to mine is suitable.”
“Of course, Sirvat,” Felda replied, and hurried off.
“Felda is very sweet-natured,” Sirvat said. “And Alcippe is very intelligent, are you not? Poor Uma has nothing but her lush body with which to attract my brother.”
“She has been successful so far,” Alcippe said with a chuckle.
“Beauty is both a blessing and a curse,” Lara said.
“Yes, I can see you would know that,” Alcippe said with a wry smile. “I do not think I have ever seen anyone as fair as you are.”
Lara sighed. “It has been said of me many times,” she admitted.
“Are you a slave?” Alcippe wanted to know.
“No,” Lara told her, and then she explained her history to her two companions concluding with, “The Dominus has agreed that I am a free woman, which is fortunate since there is much I wish to learn of Terah. I hope some of you will be able to accompany me when I travel outside of the castle precincts.”
“We do not go outside of the castle or its grounds,” Sirvat said. “No woman leaves the environs of her village in Terah. And we do not leave the castle.”
“Have you no capital city?” Lara asked Sirvat.
“What is a city?” the younger woman wanted to know.
“It is a place of many buildings, and districts. There are merchants and lords, common folk, and markets selling all manner of goods. A capital city is from where the government rules,” Lara explained.
“We have no such place,” Sirvat replied. “It is here from the castle that the Dominus rules. And it is here that many in my brother’s service dwell. In the castle depths there are shops where the villagers may purchase any goods we need. We have but to request an item, and one of our women servants will fetch it. All the shops that a woman might patronize have women to serve. There is no need for us to leave the castle.”
“But how did Alcippe and the others get here? They are slaves, are they not?”
“Yes, they are,” Sirvat said. “Now and again my brother goes to the villages. Sometimes women are offered to him for his pleasure. And sometimes, if they please him, they are given to him.”
“Your men are afraid for their women because they think they cannot speak,” Lara said. “This curse has made it very difficult for your society. Before the sorcerer did you interact, one village with another?”
“There are tales of festivals, and fairs, and holidays celebrated as a whole,” Sirvat replied. “But such things were done long ago, and even we are not certain in the truth of these tales. If not for the books we should not know at all.”
Lara nodded. “But the Dominus in his castle remained your ruler.”
“Yes,” Sirvat responded.
Lara wondered how large the Terahn Dominion was. Was it possible for Magnus Hauk to control an enormous territory where only the men fraternized with one another? How far did his lands extend? None of it, to her knowledge touched Hetar. Were there other seas? Other lands? There was so much to learn, so much she needed to know. Did Magnus Hauk have the answers she sought? Why was she here?
Felda returned and said to Sirvat, “The chamber next to yours is being aired, but it is ready to receive an occupant. Have I missed anything?”
“Shall I repeat myself?” Lara asked them with a smile.
Sirvat nodded eagerly. “It is such a fascinating story, Lara. Tell us again, and let Felda hear. And then we will show you our gardens. Have you ever had a garden of your own? We grow the most beautiful flowers.”
“Aye, I have had a garden,” Lara told them. And then she again commenced a recitation of her history for them. “I am the daughter of the Crusader Knight, John Swiftsword, formerly a Mercenary, and Ilona, queen of the Forest Faeries…”
Chapter 6
LARA SOON LEARNED that Sirvat and the others had not exaggerated. The women who lived in the castle did not venture away from its precincts. But looking from a tower window Lara was stunned by the beauty she saw, and she wanted to see more. She longed to ride out into Terah although she did understand why Terah thought their women too helpless to travel.
Helpless? Lara almost laughed aloud at her own thoughts. Sirvat and the other women were far from helpless. They managed the Dominus’s household and all that went with it very capably. And Lara assumed it was much the same in the rest of the castle, and in the villages beyond. But there seemed to be two separate societies in Terah. The men did what they had to do, and the women the same. They interacted very little except in the bedroom. And as long as the two factions could not act as one, Terah would remain as it was, and it would be vulnerable to Hetar sooner or later. She had considered when to tell the Dominus what she had learned. She needed to understand Terah more before she spoke with him.
Finally Lara approached the Dominus one late afternoon as they sat together in his own private garden. They were, after several weeks, on a first name basis. “Magnus, are you aware that your long-ago sorcerer placed his curse not upon your women, but upon the men of Terah?”
“What?” He looked very surprised, as well he might. “I do not understand, Lara.”
