A silent serving man brought cakes and a crystal decanter filled with a pale gold liquid. He placed the tray carefully on the table around which the six women were now sprawled upon large colorful cushions.
“You have already eaten cakes and drunk wine with Ahura Mazda,” Arlais told Cinnia as she handed her a goblet. “I do not lie to you.”
“It makes no difference now,” Cinnia replied sadly. “I cannot go back even though I long to do so.” She took a deep draught of the liquid in the goblet, and found it oddly soothing. Still she sighed.
Arlais caught the others’ eyes, and they nodded understanding to each other. Every newcomer to Yafirdom felt like this in the beginning. But although Cinnia did not realize it, her sorrow would soon pass, and she would be happy and content once more. She took a tiny iced cake and handed it to Cinnia, smiling. “Eat,” she said. And Cinnia did.
10
THE YAFIR HAD BEEN stopped from stealing any more of Belmair’s women. But the young queen was among the missing. Soon all of Belmair knew it, and would have mourned but that Dillon would not permit it. He sent Nidhug with messages to all three dukes, telling them that now the real battle would begin. They had to find where the Yafir were hiding themselves and Belmair’s queen.
After having convinced the dragon that even she could not have been in two places at the same time, and was with her king, which was only right and proper, Nidhug ceased her weeping to everyone’s relief as she had caused her own moat to overflow in her guilt and grief, temporarily flooding a third of the gardens that separated the two castles. Cirillo’s company had helped. He soothed her with especially delicious faerie cakes iced in gold that he conjured from the air, and with his magical kisses, which seemed to melt away her sorrow.
The three dukes were called to the royal castle to discuss the crisis. On this bright late-autumn morning they sat about a rectangular table within a small room with tall windows that looked out over the hills now dressed in scarlet, orange, purple, yellow and several shades of gold and brown against a bright blue sky. A fire in the large hearth warmed the room, the large logs crackling as the flames leaped high up the chimney. At each participant’s place there was a chassed silver goblet decorated with green malachite.
In the table’s center was a large decanter of dark red wine.
Dukes Alban, Dreng and Tullio looked curiously, and perhaps a bit nervously, at Kaliq of the Shadows and Prince Cirillo. They had grown quickly familiar with the young king, and they all knew Nidhug well. There was much magic to be found about the table and the dukes were frankly a little bit afraid if the truth had been known. They waited for Dillon to speak first.
“We have contained the Yafir as you know,” he began. “Now we must find them, and take back those women who wish to be repatriated to Belmair. And we must rescue the queen, my wife.”
“Surely, my lord, many of the women stolen over the years are now dead,” Dreng said. “And as for the others it is unlikely their families will want them returned now that they have been tainted by the Yafir. The threat is contained. It is no more, and our women are safe again.”
“The women stolen over these last centuries are very much alive, my lord,” Dillon told him. “Mortals living in the faerie world do not age. They remain as they were when they were stolen away. These are women of childbearing age. Many were married. Those stolen in the past few years may well wish to return to their husbands and homes. As for the others the families that they knew are long gone. They will undoubtedly remain with their Yafir husbands and children.”
“It is unlikely their families will receive them back,” Duke Alban said quietly. “Dreng is sadly right. Those kidnapped will be considered tainted. I will, however, welcome back any citizen of my dutchy of Belia who wishes to return. And I will provide for them if their family do not want them.”
“I want my wife back,” Dillon said quietly.
“My lord!” Now it was Duke Tullio who spoke. “You cannot accept Fflergant’s daughter back as your wife, as your queen. She has been taken by the Yafir. She is tainted! It is all well and good of Alban to offer sanctuary to those from Belia who wish to return. Those women are for the most part the wives and daughters of fishermen and herdsmen. But Cinnia was a king’s daughter, a king’s wife. You cannot take her back! Belmair’s queen must be above reproach, and even a minute spent in the Yafir lord’s custody makes her unfit to be our queen. I am sorry for I know you had come to love her, but this is not Hetar where a woman may dabble with many lovers, and still be considered a proper matron. This is Belmair. Dreng, Alban and I will carefully make up a list of maidens from among our families who would be suitable as your queen.”
“Do not bother,” Dillon said coldly. “I will have no one but Cinnia for my queen. I know, my lords, that you mean well. But I want no other but Cinnia to be my wife.”
“What if the Yafir gets a child on her?” Dreng asked in a tight voice.
“I cast a spell on my wife when we were first wed to prevent her from conceiving a child until this business with the Yafir could be settled,” Dillon told them. “Our child could have been used against us, against Belmair,” he explained. “My spell cannot be broken or reversed by any but me, my lords. She will not give Ahura Mazda a child.”
“My lords,” Kaliq said quietly, “you argue about something that can be settled at a later date. Let the king continue on with the purpose of this meeting.”
Dillon nodded a thanks to his father. “Our first goal is to ferret out the Yafir’s hiding place. Every inch of each dutchy must be searched carefully, thoroughly. They will probably have set up their world in a maze of connecting caves, or beneath the earth, or perhaps inside the hills themselves. They will be hidden where you would not expect them to hide. Once we have found their hidden place we will decide how to approach them. This business between Belmair and the Yafir does not have to end badly.”
“They were told to leave aeons ago,” Dreng said belligerently.
“They have remained in defiance of our laws. The Yafir need to be wiped from the face of Belmair!”
“If my ancestor, Napier IX, had let them have one hundred women to help them survive, none of this would have happened. As I understand it, the Yafir were good neighbors, Dreng,” Alban said. He enjoyed reminding the duke of Beltran that his ancestor had been a king of Belmair, for Dreng could make no such claim. No king of Belmair had ever come from Beltran, and Alban couldn’t resist reminding his fellow duke of that.
“It is true,” Tullio said thoughtfully, “that they lived peaceably here for many years, but they were also called the
“If we are not firm with the Yafir,” Dreng said, “they will think us weak!”
“We need not fight a war to convince them of our strength,” Dillon told the trio of dukes. “First we find them. Then we deliver a single hard blow that will gain their attention, and bring them to the bargaining table. With the decline in population that has occurred on both sides perhaps living together peaceably is better than perishing. But make no mistake about it, I can and I will win this struggle.”
“I still think we should find them and wipe them out like a nest of hornets,” Dreng said. “But I will obey your directive, Your Majesty. I will return home, and set my people to seeking out the place where the Yafir hide.”
Dillon nodded. “I appreciate your cooperation,” he told Duke Dreng.
“I will, Your Majesty,” Alban said.
“And I also, Your Majesty,” Tullio promised. “I am comforted that you would seek peace over war. The people of Hetar are not usually a peaceable folk.”
“Indeed, in the land called Hetar, there has been much war until ten years ago,” Dillon said. “But there has been peace ever since.”
“We will return you to your homes by means of our magic,” Kaliq said, and then before the dukes might speak further he did just that.
