Josh M. Parker
Pyrallan
Courtney gasped as Maya’s pin pricked her hip.
“I have an idea, Maya. Let us keep your pins in their cushion where they belong, and not in me.”
“Apologies, my lady,” said the seamstress. “Does my lady like the cut of the gown?”
“Must it be so tight?” asked Courtney as she ran her hands over the linen on her belly. “I doubt this ‘great elven warrior’ will be impressed if every fold of flesh is showing.”
“My lady is too modest,” said Maya. “She has not an inch of fat. Many girls would curse the gods to have the body my lady is blessed with.”
“Yes, well,” said Courtney. “Some days I should be glad to trade with them.”
Maya removed the pin and let the garment fall just slightly looser. Courtney did have to admit that it looked stunning. The young seamstress had outdone herself. The cream-colored linen fell from her shoulders and poured down her body in a decidedly alluring way. The cut was high enough to be lady-like but low enough to fill the elven warrior’s head with ideas.
And that was the problem. She had no interest in giving him ideas.
“Can we try the brown one again?” she asked.
“My lady knows your Lord father doesn’t like the brown,” said Maya.
“Well, it’s not he who has to wear it, is it?”
“My lady, the brown is shapeless. It hangs from you like a sack of flour.”
That’s what I like about it. “Well, then, try it with a belt,” Courtney said.
“Your humble servant begs my lady to consider,” said Maya. “The elven warrior will wish to see my lady looking like the high born noble she is. I still think my lady would look quite fetching in the silver corset with the indigo gown with the high waist. They’re all the fashion in Chan’gar lately.”
“But we are not in Chan’gar, and they are not in fashion here. The brown, if you please.”
“The brown says you’re a scullery maid. Does my lady not wish to be beautiful?”
Not for him. Not for any of them. “Oh, very well. Can we not be done for the day?”
“My lady will choose this gown, then?”
“Why not?” said Courtney. “It’s as good as any.” And as bad as any.
Maya began putting away her needles, pins and sewing blades. The fabric fell open when she removed her hand. Courtney stayed on the footstool a bit longer, looking at her reflection in the mirror. How can I look beautiful for an elf? Do they even see humans as beautiful? Others in Pyrallan certainly did. This was her fiftieth offer of betrothal since her father announced her eligibility. Every lord with a son not yet married, or widowed, had come out of the woodwork to join their house to her father’s. Some of the noble sons she had been introduced to had been young enough to be her son, others older than her father. She sighed at her reflection and took the gold headband from her auburn hair, letting it fall to her shoulders. I don’t care if he does find me beautiful. I will be bride to none of them.
“The delegation arrives tomorrow,” said Maya. She was nearly finished packing her kit away. “Surely my lady is flush with excitement.”
“Maya, please do me a favor,” said Courtney, stepping from the footstool. “Please don’t pretend with me. With Father around, I understand. Even with Simon. But you know how I feel about this.”
“Does my lady desire an opinion?” asked Maya.
“You know your opinion is valued,” said Courtney.
Nonetheless, the tiny young seamstress blushed before she spoke. “My lady evidently believes she is a princess from an old story,” she said in a rush. “In the stories a fair prince always comes who is the lady’s perfect match and saves her from all her misery. But my lady does not live in a story book.”
Courtney laughed. “I should be horrified to be one of those miserable girls,” she said. “But then, I have their problem several times over. All the young men Father has presented me to have been fair princes who seem a perfect match.” At least, their houses seem perfect matches to Father. “And this elven warrior seems to be yet another.”
“Is she complaining again?” called a voice from the doorway. Simon stood there, a smirk on his face. Courtney picked up the two sides of the dress that still hung open and folded them around herself.
“No, my lord,” said Maya. “We speak of nothing but the elven warrior. My lady is eager to meet him.”
“As are we all,” he said. “Go now, Maya. I would speak to my sister alone.”
“At least let me be decent,” she said as Maya hurried out.
“Of course. My apologies for barging in so close to such an important event. I’ll be on the terrace when you’ve finished.”
Simon glided past her to the terrace outside her parlor. She watched him go, thinking once more that the beauty in the family had all gone to him. She could not fathom how men found her beautiful, and suspected it was her father’s purse that truly attracted them. Simon, on the other hand, had every woman in Pyrallan dreaming of him, and every young man wishing to be him. Like their mother had been, Simon was tall, and he wore his height like it was natural to him. He wore his hair, darker like Father’s had been in his youth, to his shoulders and none of it ever seemed out of place. His features were as sharp as an elf’s, and his body as lean and lithe. Courtney, on the other hand, was short and fair skinned, just like their father. Thankfully, instead of his stocky frame, her body was a series of sensuous curves.
She quickly threw on the stola she’d been wearing when Maya had arrived and strolled to the terrace to join her brother. Simon had helped himself to the wine that was still there from her lunch and was standing at the balcony, looking down at the city.
“Deciding what laws to institute when you become Tribune?” she asked.
He turned and smiled. “I have no taste for politics.”
“If you must lie to me, at least try not to lie to yourself,” she said. “I barely see you anymore. You’re always sequestered in Council meetings with Father. He’s all but named you to his staff.”
“At his insistence, not mine,” he said. “If Father is ever removed from office, it is entirely likely that I will be asked to fill the role. I shan’t enjoy the task, but if I must perform it, I intend to do so, and to perform to the best of my ability. But sweet gods are those Council meetings tedious! Today we spent three hours arguing over a minute section of a new wheat trade bill. Three hours over the wording of three sentences! You have it easy, sister.”
“Hardly. I would rather debate policy and wording forever than be paraded like a piece of meat before any and all interested suitors.”
“That again.” He smiled. “Sister, how long will you keep this up?”
“As long as I have to,” she said.
“Come now, Courtney,” said Simon. “This entire ordeal is becoming steadily more ridiculous. You have turned down every eligible suitor that has come through your door for three years now. It is well past time for you to pick one and join our house to another. It’s not necessary for you to love him, or even like him. Just take his name and give him babies.”
“Like you and Eleanor?” she said. It was a low blow, and she regretted it as soon as it was out. “I’m sorry, Simon,” she said. “That was uncalled for.”
“Think nothing of it,” he said, but his face had pinched when she said his wife’s name.
“But think what you’re saying,” she said. “The very act of marrying simply to join our house to another is just the sort of nonsense Chan’gar expects of us. Must we always be trying to live up to their standards?”
“This has nothing to do with standards,” said Simon. “The fewer houses stand with us, the weaker Pyrallan becomes as a city-state. Chan’gar is constantly talking expansion, and while they may not rule us utterly here, they have far more of a foothold than Father likes, and until we find a way to remove that, we must do what we can to keep peace with them.”
“In other words,” she said. “It has everything to do with standards.”
“Where your marriage is concerned,” Simon said. “That is honestly the least of Father’s worries. House Orton and House Hollis have become markedly colder in their dealings with us since you turned down Loel and Burton.”
“Loel Orton is fifty years old, drinks like a fish and beat his last wife to death,” said Courtney. “And Burton Hollis…does not like girls. Father and Lord Hollis want grandsons? There would have been none to come from that union.”
“Be that as it may,” said her brother. “This delegation coming tomorrow is by far more important than simply joining houses. Styer Windstalker is still young, even by mortal standards, but he already has distinguished himself both in battle and in diplomacy. There are those saying he could even be chosen a Champion some day. This is how distinguished our guests will be. To be considered as a potential bride to him? You do know how great an honor this is, do you not?”
“I don’t want to be honored,” she said. “You don’t even hear yourself. Twenty years ago for a mortal to consider marrying an elf was a great honor to the elves. Now which side should feel honored is a political nightmare. Did you know there are still vocal groups within elf culture who would call Styer Windstalker a Blood traitor if he takes me to wife? There are those who might say the same of me.”
“Careful, sister,” said Simon. “Too many have heard talk like that come from your lips. There are those who say you hate elves. They’re certain you will reject Styer on the morrow because the thought of marrying an elf is detestable to you.”
She cast a venomous look at him. “Really. And I suppose you believe that.”
“You know I don’t,” he said. “But what I think and what the people think are hardly the same thing.”
“So,” she said. “You’re warning me not to refuse this match to avoid making it appear that I hate the elven people.”
“That’s not it,” he said. He pursed his lips and breathed out slowly through his nose. “Courtney, consider it this way. His tribe is honoring us by even putting up one of their own to be joined with a mortal house. You know as well as I that this sort of match isn’t common, even among the nobles of Chan’gar. If you turn him down, it isn’t only his house that loses face. Ours does as well.”
“Simon,” she said, turning to pour her own flute of wine. “I thought you said you had no taste for politics. And here you stand, telling me that I should marry another for entirely political reasons. I know all about the ramifications of rejecting him, believe me. The nobles of this city whisper about me, saying that if I have turned their sons down to only hold out for an elf, that I’m some sort of freak who hates her own kind. These same people will denounce me tomorrow if I turn down this Styer Windstalker, calling me an elf hater. So I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t. No one seems to consider that I might not wish this match, or any other Father chooses for me?”
“Why this stubborn persistence against a match?” asked Simon. “No one is asking you to love a complete stranger. In fact, it’s practically expected that whomever you marry, both of you will take other lovers, as long as you both understand that only children the two of you have with each other would inherit names, titles or lands.”
“And therein lies my problem,” said Courtney. “I refuse to spend the rest of my life a pampered whore of some fat, spotty lord, being taken whenever he desires it, regardless of my desire, and most likely giving me the same gifts his other whores have given him. The sort of gifts that can’t be taken back. I can’t think that you’d desire that life for your sister. That isn’t the sort of lives we were meant to lead. Chan’gar has changed the way we perceive marriage, and you know this as well as I.”
“Please, Courtney,” said Simon. “Have a care how you speak. Above us even now Nephilim are likely circling, and that sort of talk can have us before the Legate, or even just our heads delivered to him.”
“It’s the simple truth,” she said.
“Nephilim and those they serve aren’t interested in the truth,” he said with a glance skyward.
“Matrimony was never intended to be this way. There was a time when people married for love, and stayed true to each other. But being wife to a rich lord in name only? There used to be another word for that. Concubine.”
“Always so focused on the past,” said Simon. “Courtney, did it ever cross your mind that old matrimony was designed and put in place by the Elder gods? Do you think they designed it in such a way merely so foolish young women could marry whomever they chose?”
“The common folk still do so.”
“The common…!” Simon said. “It’s like you don’t even know who you are anymore. The system of marriage you cling to so desperately was merely a patriarchy in disguise. Men still took women as property. They just no longer had to ask permission of her father. For all that is wrong in this age, this much I can agree with. Arranged matches are what civilization hinges upon. We are not common, sister, and I will not have you rutting with some farmer simply because he strikes your fancy better. Father won’t, either.”
Courtney finished her wine and regarded her brother with a cautious eye. He was starting to get worked up. For all his talk of disliking politics, he was starting to live them and breathe them. He had no more love for Chan’gar, the Legate or the gods than she did, but he seemed determined to let them set the standards he lived by. Father was gradually becoming the same.
“With every new day,” she said. “You sound more and more like Paul Scraelocke. Let the Nephilim, if they’re listening, make of that what they will.”
Simon scowled at her. The remark had hit deep.
“And you begin to sound like the Hand of Dawn,” he said. “Tomorrow or in five hundred years a regime change may come.” He dropped his voice to a whisper, as if it mattered to a Nephilim whether you whispered or shouted. “If it comes tomorrow, I intend to be in a position where I can do the most good. You, on the other hand, seem determined to be in a place where any such change would destroy you. It’s your good I look out for.”
“Forgive me if I respectfully disagree,” she said. “I sincerely doubt you believe a regime change is coming. And I almost doubt that you even want it to.”
Simon turned and headed for the doorway. “I have duties,” he said. “Tomorrow, I and father both expect you to be looking radiant, happy, and ready to meet Styer Windstalker. Don’t disappoint our father, Courtney.” Before she could reply, he was gone.
She waited until she was certain he was not coming back. “Widetail,” she said. A moment later, a woman’s face appeared in the wall to her right.
“Yes, my lady,” said the house spirit.
“Where is Father now?”
“In the Council chambers with Minister Echols and the Master of the Annals.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“You’re not thinking of going to him, now, are you?” asked Widetail. “You know what he will say. There is nothing that will stop tomorrow from happening. The delegation is almost the city gates as we speak.”
“Perhaps I cannot stop the meeting,” said Courtney. “But Father has refused to speak to me on this subject any further. I intend to make him.”
“Foolish,” said the spirit. “You are the most stubborn woman I know, but your father has made his mind up. It may take him a while to come to a decision, but once he does, he seldom wavers.”
“Perhaps I won’t force him to waver,” said Courtney. “I simply want to talk. Father believes in the established principles of liberty and individualism. At least, he once did. I need to remind him of that.”
“Do as you will, my lady,” said Widetail. “And reap whatever consequences come of it. But I worry. I worry that one day you will say too much and the wrong ears will hear it. It need not be a Nephilim that carries word to Chan’gar. It need only be a blind loyalist to the Imperium.”
“All that I do is for the good of Róthysia,” said Courtney. “All of Róthysia, and all of its people. Not only those our gods deem worthy.”
“That will make no difference to the Legate,” said Widetail. “Or the god he serves.”
“As my brother said, one day there will be a regime change,” Courtney said. “But unlike him I can’t think it will ever happen if everyone just sits around and waits for it.”
“Just please understand,” said Widetail. “All that matters to me is your safety. Well, yours and the whole of your house. I have resolved to keep your secret and I shall. But you worry me so.”
“And for that I apologize, Widetail,” said Courtney. “I truly do. But I’m going to find Father now. Could you please keep an eye on my room while I’m gone and tell me if anyone tries to enter it? On a day like today, everyone thinks my business is theirs.”
“I shall do so, my lady,” said the spirit. “Please, tread carefully. You do not carry the power you would like to think you do.”
“I hold no illusions about the power I carry,” said Courtney. “Or lack thereof. I’ll be back, hopefully soon.”
“Luck go with you,” whispered Widetail.