the Leathermines

To chapter 1

 

Everything that was not snow had suddenly turned to mud.  There was no way to avoid it.  Both courtyards were ankle deep mud.  The road was slick mud.  The garden outside the tent was gravely mud.  Even under the canvas that the protectors used over the winter as a practice area had areas where it was dangerous to walk or else you would slip or even sink in deep enough to loose a boot.

Orgia had wondered out loud on several occasions if boots produced boot bushes when mud covered protectors came limping in, covered with mud and missing footwear.

Mud meant that Laun’s palfrey, Butterflies Grace, did not want to step one hoof out of the stables.  She was a natural ambler, safe for Laun to ride at about any time, but the bay horse had a mind of her own.  And when a war-trained horse refuses to go outside, you do not tempt fate by trying to force her.  Laun tried several times to lead the horse out.  The third attempt and Grace knew what was happening and sat down in the middle of the stable aisle, refusing to go anywhere.

Laun understood and when she dropped the lead and stepped back, Grace stood back up and went back to the stall she was sharing with one of the smaller mules.  The mule butted Grace in the side with her head and Grace nipped at the mule.  They had been forced to be together, but seemed to now play at the aggression.

Thwarted.  Yes, Laun thought to herself.  Thwarted.  She would not be able to walk in the mud by herself with the way her stomach had started throwing off her balance.  She did not want anyone to know that, yet.  She was round and she felt herself waddle a little bit if she did not work at walking somewhat normally.

So, Laun went back inside the keep, even though it was a warm day outside.  She did not want to climb all the stairs to the top of the tower to be on the walkway.  It would be outside, but it was after all those stairs.  She did not want to go back to her room in the tower.  That would mean she would just fall asleep.

“Orgia.  Put me to work.”

An eyebrow went up in the older woman’s face but she did not skip a beat when she said, “We need to eye those potatoes for planting.”  Orgia pointed with her ladle to a group of her staff who were carefully cutting the sprouting bits off the last of the potatoes.  It was delicate work because if you snapped the growth, it could not be used.

Laun enjoyed being able to be in with her household and be productive.  Her hands worked as she thought.  She had been brought up as a slave, trained as a dancer.  The lowest echelon in the keep.  By fate and blood, she had become more.  Much more.  The leader of the household of Salam-Dir, a landed nobles’ title.  And then much more above that, if she let herself pay attention to her Grandfather, King Dreng.

King Dreng had been the king to unite the squabbling Midlands over forty years before and had been in control ever since.  Well, until his son, Falmir, had decided that Dreng had been king for long enough and had pushed a coup at a Festival, and  backed by the neighboring country of Rosemond.  Laun had a flash of a frown as she thought of the Festival.  And what happened before.

The last Summer.  Laun could not believe that it had only been last Summer that everything had come to a head.  Lady Hellon, Lady to Lord Vami Salam-Dir, had died while preparations to journey to Falmir’s land for the festival was underway.  They now knew that she had been poisoned by pastry bits brought to her by Bregnan, a wiseman who professed to only be Lord Vami’s man.  Laun had also eaten some of the tainted rhubarb as a politeness to her Lady.  They were both sick for days, but Laun had survived.

Lord Vami had sent the household on to the Festival and had been sitting vigil over his wife.  There were few in the household with him.  The raiders struck and Laun had been the one to bring him the news as the gates were being battered down, the household slaughtered as they went.

By fate, Lord Vami knew something would happen and had made a document.  He made the frightened, mostly naked slave into his heir with the stroke of a quill.  He tried to clothe her, armor her, but all he could do was hide her when the bandits found them.  He died protecting her.

Laun felt a tear roll down her cheek as she remembered.  It was better remembering him lying on the floor than it had been.  She still had the ghosts of the people who died in the keep right behind her eyes, but it was not as dreadfully painful any more.  She was still grieving.  If she was not careful, she would slip into the bad darkness and need help pulling out.  Laun wiped the tear from her cheek and continued working, and remembering.

Her Lord had given her a name.  Someone to find for help.  She had made her way to Lord Helmic the Black’s keep after the first days and night out of the castle by her self, ever.  He had rejected her.  His dark grey eyes, so like his son’s but full of anger and rage, unlike Fount.  She had been sent on her way and had hidden in the woods near the Nestwood Keep as the bandits raided that keep, too.

She had walked.  She had slept in the open.  She had been rained on.  She had met people she now held dear.

Laun looked over at Orgia who was trying to seem business like as she and her husband talked by one of the hearths.  Geralk had been the first friendly person on her journey from the Salam-Dir lands, who had not died.  He had taken her under his wing, heard her story and had taught her things.  He had introduced her to Marie and Markle, Innkeepers who were deep in the outlaw greyworld.  Laun smiled as she thought of how Geralk had pushed her on her path to being an information gatherer, to his exclamations, a journeyman on her way to being a Master.

The journey into gathering information had been hard won.  Getting information and then making a hard push to the Festival to warn her household, and the King, of what she knew, had been hard on her.  The wounds she had been dealt by bandits and ill-fitting clothing had been painful, but she had endured to protect her people.

It was the information that came out after the coup that had truly changed her life.  The King’s son was her father.  At least that was what they all had surmised once the likeness between Laun and Dreng was thought through.  Along with the circumstances of her birth to a cast-out noble girl.  Falmir had more to answer for than just the coup.

The Salam-Dir household that had been left had made it back to the keep from the trap of a Festival. It had been hard to clean out the castle and keep of the bodies of the people slaughtered by the bandits.  It had been done and the household worked to bring in the harvests for the winter.

And then more people came, including Dreng, and Laun’s cousin, Dougal.  If Falmir was to be ousted, Dougal was first in line for the throne.  Laun was second.

It scared her thinking of the more responsibility that would be.  She would not have the household, the family, she held so dear around her.

Laun felt another kick and her bladder told her it was in need of emptying, again.  She had helped eye out more than half a bushel of the potatoes.  She smiled at the staff around her and stood.  Many of them smiled and nodded to her and kept working.

Laun tried not to let her walk be other than the glide she had worked so hard to maintain, but she had to speed up to get to the privy and the waddle was let loose for the first time in public.  With the amount of pregnant women in the household, everyone stepped aside to let her through when they saw that she was on a mission.  She made it, the split bench over the hole in the privy a relief in more ways than one.

She smiled, thinking of the crap pits that had been created for defense around the lands.  The main road was bordered with four and five foot trenches filled with the waste from the keep.  They knew it worked as the scout they had found from Falmir had boots covered with crap.  The bandits that had been sent to attack at First Feast at the start of Winter had tripped over several, too.

The plants were going to love the fertilizer, once it composted down a bit.  To Laun that was the best part - a trap and plant food all in one.

There had been one push of people to leave at the first thaw.  Nobles who needed to get out and see if they had thier lands still to them, including Killar.  He had taken his daughter Emmy and the boy Greg with him, promising to care for them and come back if his house in the Capitol City was not his.  No word had come back and after it had snowed again, Laun was not sure if there would be.

Laun cursed to herself as her trip to the privy had worn her out.  She really did not want to take yet another nap.  Her workout that morning had been cut short by the need to, and Laun sighed, get to the privy.  Perhaps Disa was right and she needed to have a chamberpot.  She detested them because she thought they symbolized a weakness.  As Laun walked the corridors of the keep, she looked down and rubbed her belly through the layers of tunics.  Her baby was not a weakness, but it was taking more and more out of her.

Laun came back into the Great Hall and sat on a bench by one of the two massive fireplaces set on either end.  The wood was slightly damp and popped once in a while after the moistness hissed away.  She found that a mug of tea was in her hand and Silar sat next to her with his own mug steaming into his face.

He had a slight gleam of sweat on his dark forehead.  She trailed a finger through it and down to his cheek.  “The protectors are learning a new weapon, and they are all trying to beat my ass with it.”

Laun smiled and looked at him slightly sideways and said over the rim of the mug, “I thought that was my job.”

If he had been any lighter, Laun knew she would have seen a blush from how he glanced down and back up again.  “My Lady, I may have some energy...”

Laun smiled broadly, her teeth catching the tip of her tongue for a moment before she said, “I have been thinking of just that.  But-” her eyes saddened slightly, “even though I love you, I am too tired my self.”

His eyes had snapped wide.  He started to say something and then stopped.  He swallowed and said, “You haven’t said that before. I love you, My Lady.”  He turned into her hand on his cheek and kissed it.

She moved her hand down and ran her thumb over his mouth.  She smiled.  She had not said it outloud before.  “I have been remiss, my prince.”

Normally, he would wince slightly at the reminder that he once was in line for a throne a continent away.  Right then, he had a glow in his almond eyes as he looked at her.  He blurted out, “Be my Princess- my wife!”

Laun stopped and pulled back.  “I am more likely to marry my own cousin than you, Silar.  That would only be to solidify the monarchy of the Midlands.”  Her hand went to her belly and felt a kick that she thought was brought on by the shock that had gone through her.

Silar stared.  His mouth was partially open.  “...then you do not-”

Laun had a flash of anger, but tempered it with a breath.  “Silar, I do love you.  I also love Edgar.  And I also love Fount.  I do not wish to be pushed into choosing just one person to be beside me for the rest of my life.”  She leaned forward and put her hand on his chest, over his heart.  “Even such a beautiful man as yourself.”

Laun felt the eyes on her and Silar.  It took a moment before Silar realized that the Great Hall was quiet, listening to them.  He stood, putting the mug on the bench, and just left.  Laun could see the coldness that had filled him and she knew there had to have been a softer way to say what she said.  Her stomach gave her a half-hearted acid burp and she absently drank the tea while looking into the fire, trying to dissect what had just happened.

There had been a push for her to choose someone to be her Lord beside her.  Two, actually.  One when she first had come back with the household to the Salam-Dir lands.  The second was when it was discovered that she was pregnant.  She did not enjoy the heated argument with Dreng the second time.  He had insisted that she choose either of her favorite men so that the baby would be legitimate when it was born.

Laun cringed inside when she had heard her voice say to her beloved Grandfather and King, “And that turned out so well with your son, didn’t it.”  It had come out cold and dry and she had instantly regretted it.  Something inside of her had pushed it, though, and she had found herself saying, “And since legitimacy is what you want, remember how I was born.  Do you know by some magic given to you by your crown who the father of this baby is?  If I were to choose one of my loves over another, are you the one to take the questions if I chose wrong?”

Dreng had fumed, had yelled, had protested.  Then he calmed down and thought and apologized. They talked more, had made up and were mostly happy after a while.  It was something that Laun felt that they had, a trust that no matter what, they would be there for each other in some way.  And the ability to be angry without it lasting.

Laun was not so sure about Silar.  He was ruled by his passions.  She knew that he could be patient, even under duress.  But his heat flashed through him and he became all action.  She had not seen him just walk away like that before.

Thinking of all that drama made her even more tired.  She could not delay taking a nap any longer.  And she yet again had to visit the privy.  She took both mugs partway to the kitchens before someone stopped her with a touch on her shoulder.  They took the used mugs and smiled as Laun turned to go, a distracted and sad look in her eye.

She did the necessary things and found the bed in the tower room.  She had barely looked at the protector that was on duty at the door.  She was just exhausted.  She wrapped herself in several blankets and let her tired brain drift down into sleep.

It was not to last.  The door into the room had been left open, but there was a scratching at the doorframe before someone entered.  The scratching woke Laun slightly, the movement of the bed as someone sat next to her shaking her more awake.

She did not want to open her eyes.  She could smell the mud the person had brought in with them from outside.  Not just from outside, from past the log barrier.  She could smell the mossiness that the road had developed since they had tried to make it look like the road was not used.

But it was important.  The person would not be there if it wasn’t.

Laun opened her eyes and saw Jake.  “I thought you were at the trading post.”

Other protectors started to come into the tower room.  “Yes, Lady, but we have a...situation.”

She didn’t bother to sit up.  The faces around her told her that something was potentially wrong, but there wasn’t an immediate action really required.  “...And?”

Jake cleared his throat and said, “There is a messenger from Falmir who has decided to stop at the post for the night.”

Laun sat up.  The blankets were encumbering her, and she had a few hands to help her get out of them.  “Say that again.”

Edgar was there and took the lead.  “Lady.  Protectors are out past the trading post to see if there are any other of the Dark colors to be seen.  The messenger seems to be alone, a horse and pack mule only with him.  Michal is still there and is keeping him occupied.  The man said that he had been sent to find Salam-Dir and present a message to their leader.”

Jake smiled and said, “Evidently, he was misdirected by a helpful innkeeper about a week ago.”

“Bless them.  Well, what are we going to do?”

 

A day in the Country... Chapter 3