Page 38 of Elvenbred

“You were saying … ” Nora prompted.

“We women are less overtly powerful,” Triana continued, “but female magic is domestic. It concentrates on the small rather than the large, and that means our abilities look more like those of a jeweler than a blacksmith. We often … not always, but often … learn fine control, instead of pure power. The ability to magic up a fine lace, make a perfect flower arrangement, create the perfect seducing bower … turns out those are the same skills needed to stitch a wound, heal an injury, or negotiate a peace.” She paused for a moment. “In truth, I was never very good at any of those things, certainly not the healing, stitching, or negotiation, and I’m sure not making skiving lace, but it’s the sort of thing we women tell ourselves.”

Nora glanced at her. “What were you good at?”

Triana saw the trap open up. So far, Nora had kept her confidences, but Nora worked for someone, and it wasn’t Triana. She grinned at Nora. “Getting my own way.”

Nora nodded along. “Parts of what you describe sounds like here, but the rest is very different. Women here have more choices … but many of the same … limitations.” Triana didn’t have to be a savant to read the unhappiness behind that. The children she would never have. Triana wasn’t sure how to respond. She breathed a silent sigh of relief as Nora used her talent for shifting away from uncomfortable topics to save Triana from having to reply.

Nora turned to the women in the line ahead of them, who had been openly staring at Triana. “Hello, Ylana. Thank you for the help with the stain on the blouse. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to get it out, and I only have just the one. Thank you again.” She gestured towards Triana. “Have you met my friend, Triana? She’s from one of the outlying colonies. Agriculture.”

Both women immediately looked sympathetic. “You poor dear,” gushed Ylana, “we heard such terrible stories about the farm colony being overrun. It’s all been kept hush-hush by the city, so of course everyone knows about it. It must be so very hard for you to be so far from your home, Trey’ana.”

Triana had to admire Nora’s ability to escape uncomfortable topics. “You have no idea,” she replied dryly.

Nora shifted to include the other two women, and Triana found herself immersed in some kind of babbling stream-of-consciousness from the extremely voluble Ylana. Triana gathered that she was a seamstress, and a veritable font of knowledge about the goings-on in the servants’ quarters. Nora, for her part, looked to be well grounded in the household gossip, and Triana found herself drawn in, in spite of her efforts to remain aloof. Ylana’s story about having to let out the waist for one of the undercooks drew a baffled expression from Triana. The other women cackled together before Ylana mimed a big belly. “Silly hen is knocked up and has no idea.”

Triana remained confused, uncertain about what was funny …. “So, the girl is pregnant?”

The three women burst out laughing. Triana began to get irritated, begging to suspect they were laughing at her.

Nora chortled, and wiped away a tear. “Her husband works in a different House, so the odds are pretty close to nil that the child is his.” Triana understood that well enough. Scandals involving the ladies of the Great Houses were the bread and butter of elven lord politics. It stood to reason that any place where the servants of Houses could mix, there would be scheming and opportunities too. Nothing succeeds like novelty … especially here I think! In a place where there seemed to be so little novelty that simple sauces were valuable treasures, the prospect of getting into bed with a new face must provide an overwhelming temptation.

The four passed through the line with Ylana keeping up a running commentary. Once their turn came, each took a bowl of food, with the tallyman carefully noting their names and work sections. Ylana seemed to know the cook, and a quick question about the fit of a child’s frock netted a slightly larger spoonful for them all. Not enough to pronounce overt favoritism, but certainly a bit more than the others received.

Triana followed the three to a table, and as they sat she gave the gray and flavorless stuff a long look. Nora had taught her the proper name, based on a fancy-sounding dish that no one had eaten in a long time, but which Triana just thought of as “gruel.” The fourth woman, who Triana had learned during one of the (infrequent) gaps in Ylana’s monologue was Emina, passed around a small bag of green herbs that each sprinkled on their meals. Emina’s herbs held the savor of meat, and made the gruel quite tasty. Ylana had long since mastered the art of eating and talking, and barely broke stride to consume her meal.

The more they chatted, the more Triana got drawn in, and was soon laughing at the stories and absurdities. Ylana and Nora both told stories well, and for Triana, it served as quite an education. Along the way, it occurred to her that the dramas of the servants’ lives, so well told (and embellished) by Ylana, did a pretty good job of also describing the elven lords’ constant scheming … the politics, the games, and ups and downs, and the backs and forths, were all the same as those she played with (and against) the other lords. The stakes might be very much different, but the games seemed the same.

She drifted out of the conversation to chew on one unsavory detail. She had never considered servants as being anything other than, well … servants. They did as they were told, and then who went away until summoned. The idea that they had lives, loves, and … drama … (so very much drama … according to Ylana), hadn’t really occurred to her.

Triana also had a front row seat as the women’s discussion of their own lords … Haldeen and his ladywife barely spoke these days. Emina often took them their breakfast, and she described relations as “frosty.” Ylana’s cackle that she had no worries about letting out the ladywife’s seams anytime soon appeared to Triana to be both accurate and unseemly. Other stories flowed. Part of her listened, while the rest worked on what she had heard. Gladiators and champions had filled her bed, and satiated her when her body needed physical release, and she had had her favorites … what was his name … the one with the crooked grin, whose embrace could make her feel safe when she felt lost. No. None of that mattered. He was just a slave. No more.

She shut down that line of thought, before it got out of hand, and focused on Ylana.

“Haldeen’s always been odd, but he’d been behaving very oddly recently. Strange hours and secretive comings and goings. With him and the ladywife on the outs … maybe a quick pass through the upper servant’s quarters, a quick midnight tryst in one of the private rooms?” Ylana glanced meaningfully at Nora, who gave away nothing. Ylana held the moment a few seconds, then moved on once all three saw Nora would not be drawn. Ylana moved on then to discuss the current gossip, about the scullery trading favors for extra food.

Triana did notice that Nora remained tightly focused on any gossip about Haldeen. She kept a light smile and laughter on her lips, but her eyes remained focused and attentive.

Triana wondered if her own servants, and even slaves, gossiped about her this way. Her initial response served up an indignant, They wouldn’t dare. A more honest appraisal suggested that they very much did dare, and that few things an elven lord did would remain secret for long. Her penchant for keeping her business to herself meant that the servants’ gossip could describe the “whats” of what she did, but not the “whys.” Still, something to ponder.

Nora caught Triana looking at her, and shifted, relaxing and smiling as she circled to the gossip about the chambermaid and the elf they called “Shoulders.” Nora drew her in after that, and coaxed Triana into a few stories of her own. She told them badly, stumbling over unfamiliar words and local slang, and had to have Nora step in and save her when she got blank expressions. Nora’s quick explanation yielded honest laughter.

Later, as lunch ended, and the women returned to their work tasks, Triana found herself dozing in her chair. She blinked, confused, as the others rose. Once the others left, Nora gave her an appraising look. “You look like you are about to fall over. How about if I take you back, and give you some time to do some ‘reading,’ and I’ll see you in the morning?”

Triana stifled a yawn behind her hand, and nodded.

It wasn’t until Nora had locked her in, and she lay on her bed that she realized that the tutor had never answered her question about how magic worked here.

“I’ll be damned,” Triana swore. “She changed the subject.”

She nodded off a few moments afterwards.

9

N

Haldeen let out an exasperated breath. His papers had been moved! He had suspected it the first night, when things in his tower office had been shifted from where he had thought he had placed them. Things had been chaotic, so he hadn’t been entirely certain. The second time he’d been focused on the Probe. It had gone overdue, then turned up hours late, carrying only scrap metal, which proved worthless for answering any of his questions. He’d been focused on that, and not fully paying attention to what he had been doing. He was almost certain then that things had been moved out of place, but in his distraction, he hadn’t been completely sure.