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Would they even believe me? Or would they think I’m just trying to get out of doing my duty to the King?
In our kingdom of Darthage, the word of the male in a household usually carries more weight than a woman’s. Unfair, but true. The guards are more likely to rely on my brother’s word than mine.
But I have to try something. I can’t just sit here and travel farther and farther away from my home without protest.
I’m working up the courage to shatter the creaking quiet of the wagon with a shout, when suddenly, mercifully, it stops.
The chain clanks, and the door opens.
“Piss break,” says a guard. He’s holding a crossbow, lightly, angled downward, but it’s still a warning. “Watch yourselves, ladies. No trouble, or we’ll have to get rough.”
I do need to piss, so I climb out of the wagon with the others and head for some bushes. In their shadow I crouch, taking care not to soil my shoes, stockings, or skirts. It’s mid-afternoon, but the thick canopy of the trees and the lush undergrowth creates shadowed pockets within the wood, and I briefly contemplate fleeing, seeking refuge in those green depths.
“Hurry up!” shouts a guard. “No lingering, and no running, or you’ll get a crossbow bolt to the knee!”
It’s like he knew what I was thinking. Grimly I suppress the urge to flee and I head back toward the wagon, venturing closer to the guard with the crossbow. “I’m afraid there’s been a mistake,” I tell him in a low tone. “My brother—he likes to make up stories. I don’t have magic.”
He stares me down. “So you’re brother’s a filthy liar.”
“He wasn’t thinking straight, sir. He—”
“Or you’re the liar, trying to weasel your way out of serving your King.”
“No, sir. That’s not it.”
“If your brother has lied to the Crown it’ll be the gallows for him. As for you...” He cocks his head, surveying my body with a lustful gleam in his eye. “Either the gallows or the concubines’ house, depending on the king’s mood when we tell him how he’s been deceived. So you’d better hope you have magic, and the showy kind, too.”
Shit. This is worse than I imagined.
I’ve heard stories of the royal guards’ cruelty, and the harshness of the king himself. But I live near a pleasant town, and until today I’ve had no encounters with the royal guards, so I thought it couldn’t be that bad. Once again, it appears I was giving the benefit of the doubt to people who don’t deserve it, like I did over and over with Prain.
All too soon, we’re back in the wagon. The uneasy silence thickens the air again as the hours pass. We stop twice, and a couple more young women climb into the wagon. One claims she can grow tiny flowers from her palms. Another can bend slender rays of light to create small reflections or faint illusions.
Magic has all but died out in this land, at least among humans. What’s left lives mostly in a some of the women,and rarely in those of other genders. It manifests in small talents, simple gifts—with rare exceptions like Lady Kessalif, who possesses not only limited intrinsic gifts, but the ability to cast spells and curses like the Elves do.
Now that I’ve had time to think about King Falron’s edict and the fact that he’s keeping all the women he collects as concubines, his purpose is clearer to me. He wants a collection of women with magic, no matter how small their gifts may be, by which he can spawn a brood of children, a few of whom will hopefully be powerful—perhaps as powerful as Lady Kessalif herself.
We have lore about the source of magic. Our Creator Goddess gave it to the Early Ones, also called the Kin, the Chosen, or the Elves. They used it to tend the woods, tame the seas, and improve the world.
Though she preferred the Kin, the goddess did not exclude humans from magic entirely. Humans with a deep love of the soil, the sea, or the forests could absorb a bit of magic from nature, or from things the Elves had blessed. Such magic, once gained, belonged to those humans for life, and was often passed to their children, though it took a new and different form in each generation. Absorbing magical power used to be easier in ancient times, but now the world is more civilized, more well-traveled, and the Elves have withdrawn into their own haunts within the deep forest. The use of all Elvenmade objects, artifacts, and charmed objects is forbidden in Darthage, and has been for years. If the Elves did emerge and visit our towns, most people would fear them, not welcome them.
I’ve never had much of an opinion on the subject of Elvish-human relations. But I love stories with Elves in them, I bake Kinsbread at Elventide, and I enjoy a good kerrydin jig like anyone else in my town.I’d like to think I would be a friend to them if they decided to emerge again.
As the journey drags on, I wish fervently that I knew more about Elvish artifacts, or that I could locate some source of magic and absorb it. I don’t fancy being killed or living out my life as a concubine.My mind and my will are still resisting the dreadful truth weighing on my heart—the truth that whether I have magic or not, whether I confess or not, my life as I knew it is over.
My business, my baking, my plans, my hopes—gone. Wiped out by my brother’s choices—and by my choice to go along with his lie.
I don’t want a title, a crown, or a royal husband. I want to get out of this wagon and go home. There’s so much to do at the mill, so many standing orders to fill for the shops and inns in our area. Even if I escape this somehow, I’ve lost hours of work. I’m going to be so far behind.
You won’t escape, a doleful voice in my mind tells me. You’d best start thinking about how you can please the King.
The King is well over fifty, but even his most recent statues and paintings depict him as young and virile. For someone like me, who has never seen him in person, it’s hard to know for sure what he looks like. Official portraits or statues of government officials and nobles tend to be unrealistically flattering, while the caricatures sketched by political jokesters are just as unreliable, exaggerating the subject’s worst features.
I don’t know much more about King’s style of rule than his personal appearance. Since he took power, he has been slowly tightening the laws that grew lax during his father’s reign. He has formed alliances with the neighboring nations through bribery or threats—I’m not sure which. Our mill has suffered from hefty tax increases, so I’ve harbored a vague disapproval of his reign for a while, solely for that reason.
As for his personal life, I’ve heard the names of a few royal mistresses circulated through the market, but none of those mistresses seem to have lasted long. Certainly none gained a title or a crown. Perhaps now that the major affairs of the kingdom are more or less settled, the king has turned his attention to domestic affairs, and the duty of producing heirs.
My thoughts dissipate as the wagon halts again and a guard hands in a basket of sandwiches. I let the other women choose first, and by the time the basket gets to me, there’s only one thin sandwich left... squashed brown bread, with sliced cucumber and shredded carrot embedded in a thick nutty paste. Not the sort of fare for a girl with a hearty appetite. The other women mutter complaints, protesting that they should be treated better as the King’s prospective brides.
