I was beginning my sixth year of pilgrimage, scouting the Churnam lands west of Nivram, in the hills near the second range. I was associated with a small mercenary company protecting one of the passes between the first and second ranges, and a deep scouting mission seemed necessary at the time.
It was fall and getting cool in the evenings. I was looking for a good place to set up camp while there was plenty of light left to take care of my horse. I was passing a small copse of trees when a flash of light caught my eye. Out of the tree’s shadows stepped a beautiful young woman. She had long black hair with exotic, multicolored blossoms woven in, large blue green, almond shaped eyes, fringed with black lashes in a pale face. A flowing, white gown that was tight at the waist accented her figure and was tied with a red scarf of delicate weave. She carried more blossoms in her arms, like a bride, and she was barefoot.
She didn’t look like a Churnam; among other things, she looked like she’d bathed recently. She wasn’t really dressed for the climate, and I’d never seem flowers like she was carrying before. At first, I thought she might be a wood nymph, out of some strange legend like my father used to tell, but she looked at me with frightened eyes and yet did not run back into the woods. Instead, she stood tall, took a deep breath and walked up to me, handed me the flowers she was carrying and stepped back shut her eyes and lifted her chin to expose her neck, for all the world looking like she was waiting for me to cut her throat.
I dismounted, walked up to her and looked down into her face, so calm and accepting, so beautiful, like an exotic flower. We might have stood there for a long time, but she peaked at me through the lashes of one eye, so I did the only thing a gentleman could do in such a situation—I kissed her.
I really meant it to be a gentle little kiss, perhaps on the forehead, to reassure her, but somehow, that’s not what happened. I did get her to open her eyes though. It was a long kiss…a very through kiss.
Still holding her hands, I seemed to have dropped the flowers for some reason; I asked her where she was from. She looked at me with that eyebrow quirk she uses when she thinks we’re doing something supremely silly. Then she spoke in her musical voice. I have no idea what she said, but it sounded nice. Then she quirked her eyebrow at me again and I could feel her internal laughter. She had evidently decided not to be afraid of me, despite the kiss. She also seemed to think it was unlikely that we spoke any language in common; a fact I confirmed by speaking to her in every language I knew.
She gestured around as if to say, “Is there some reason we are standing around in the open.” So, we went into the woods and I built a cold camp. I didn’t want to take any chances with the Churnam in the neighborhood. She didn’t feel like she was trying to seduce me, and for reasons I will never understand, I felt more protective than amorous.
I gave her some jerky and she looked at it like I’d given her some shoe leather to eat. So, I took it back and chewed on it and got the eyebrow look again. But she ate some after she’d seen me swallow mine.
We spent the night, huddled together, wrapped in my cloak and blanket, mostly sitting up with our backs against a tree. She chatted away softly, once we’d settled, I think mostly to hear a voice and to make it feel more normal. I could feel her loneliness and her uncertainty…and her trust.
I think that uncomfortable night was the happiest night of my life, to that point. I felt as if I’d found the other half of my soul. In the morning, we just stayed sitting together until mid morning, only this time I rambled on to her about my hopes and dreams, my past and my family. It didn’t matter to either of us that she didn’t understand the language. I could feel her relax and become comfortable with her situation.
We broke camp and I offered her the horse. She shook her head and resisted, indicating I should ride my own horse…until I pointed out her bare feet. She blushed a little, shrugged and did that little shoulder and head twitch that seems to indicate “oh well.” Then she mounted and I led her to safer lands. Your mother always has had that independent streak…well, actually, she’s as stubborn as a mule, but since I love her, I prefer to call it independence and self-reliance. Good qualities for a queen.
By the end of the day, she was speaking a few words of Trade. By the end of the week, she was speaking complete sentences, with only a little accent but not much cultural understanding. We’d laugh at her mistakes and she’d learn more. By the end of the month, she spoke Trade like a native of the trade families, except that she didn’t have much local knowledge.
I think that you have inherited her gift for language; she picks them up like a sponge picks up water. At the base camp, not a great place for a delicate woman—fortunately she only looks delicate—they spoke Nivramtir, Käläkhäntir and trade. She’d been there for about a month when I did something that bothered her: tracked mud onto the dirt floor perhaps, doesn’t matter, and she cursed me out in all three languages.
So, I married her. That day. I waited for her to run down and then dragged her to a priest. It seemed to me that if I was going to get the yelling part of a relationship, I should be able to enjoy the rest. She did make me take off my boots and stand barefoot in the mud under the open sky—must have been raining earlier that day, I remember the mud—and she did the same. She said it was so that the earth and sky could witness our love.
That was the closest she ever came to telling me anything from her past. She’s never told anyone where she’s from. “It’s past; it’s gone; it doesn’t matter,” is all she’s ever said on the topic.
A few months later, in midsummer, I told her that I’d accepted a new job in the south. She gave me the eyebrow.
“You could be the captain of this company, if you wanted,” she said with her emotions radiating concern that I had no ambition.
“Family obligation,” I explained.
More eyebrow. I love making her do that.
“I thought you said it was a new job, and you’ve never mentioned your family.”
“It is a new job, and my family has been unimportant until now,” I said in fair imitation of her tone when I ask her about her past.
Eyebrow!
So we rode south with her trying everything she could to find out what secret I was keeping. A very enjoyable trip it was, too; she can be very creative when she wants something.
The Lastari Woods spooked her a bit. Then I told her I was related to them and got the eyebrow again.
As we rode through the kingdom, she commented on how well run the lands seemed to be and perhaps I could join their guard and become a captain in their army. Maybe I could even earn a knighthood. I could feel the stars in her eyes; she believed I could do anything. Then she asked if they would grant outsiders knighthoods. I told her that I had grown up in this kingdom and wasn’t an outsider, and that, yes, by merit, anyone could earn a knighthood, but that I didn’t think they’d let me in my new job.
Eyebrow!
About two days out I stopped at a guard post and talked to the captain out of her hearing. I had her water the horses; that independent streak has its uses. I sent word ahead that I was coming home.
She asked about where the job was. I told her that we stayed in the city. How big a city? Wait and see. She wasn’t very pleased with me.
“We have to stop and see my parents and their friends before I can accept my new position,” I told her.
She got nervous about meeting my parents; she’d finally made the connection between “family” and “meeting parents”. It distracted her for a bit.
When that problem began to wear off, I pulled my staff out of “the closet.”
“WHAT IS THAT?” Her beautiful turquoise eyes were about twice their normal size, so there was no eyebrow this time.
“A staff.”
“A STAFF?” This was only the second time I’d heard her raise her voice, the first being a few seconds earlier.
“Very good,” I said.
“What are you doing with a staff?”
“Carrying it.”
As she thought about this, her face showed a whole series of emotions, some of which weren’t comfortable to share. So, I eased up and explained that it is not always safe in the northern realms, to let people know that one is a mage. I left out that it could possibly have identified me. I did explain that as I wasn’t going to do magic up there that I didn’t feel that it was safe to share that little with her. I asked her to forgive me.
You know how she mutters to herself when she’s really upset, but she forgave me and we talked about magic and how, in Käläkhän mages have status and that in a few years I’d be an adept and that was considered equal to a knighthood. She got that glow in her eyes again that said how much she believed in me.
She wasn’t sure she wanted to live in a city, but I told her there were plenty of gardens and parks to walk in. She seemed dubious and described the cities she knew about, which sounded rather frightening with no parks and little space and trash in the streets. I learned a bit about her past. She said my city sounded more like their towns.
The next day we rode into view of the City.
“We’re going there?”
“Yes.”
“It’s huge!”
“Yes.”
“Why are we going there?”
“Because it’s too big to move here,” I said at my calmest.
I was glad to see her eyebrow hadn’t broke the day before.
“My parents work at the palace.” I said quietly.
“The palace!” Her voice came out all squeaky.
“They should be waiting for us; it’s been seven years since I last saw them.”
Her understanding of how important that would be for me overrode her concerns about everything else, until she realized that she’d meet them again. I reassured her that my mother’s only concern would be that we loved each other and my father, Breslar, would want to know if she knew any good songs. “He’s a famous bard, among other things.”
“A bard! Does he perform for the royalty?”
I was able to inform her with complete sincerity that he was a favorite of the queen.
“Will they give your parents time to visit with you?”
I informed her that the queen made it a policy to allow everyone a chance to be involved with his or her family and that while my new job would require that I met with any number of people, the first day after a child returns from a long pilgrimage is given to the family.
She did some thinking and then realized I must have left home at age 18 and not written to my family in all that time. She then let me know in no uncertain terms that I’d treated my mother quite shabbily. I could feel that she was actually offended on my mother’s behalf. It distracted her almost enough to miss the fact that the guards just waved us through the gate and into the city, after coming to attention, without asking us a single question.
“They know you?” she asked.
“I trained with some of them and they know about my new job.”
“Why didn’t they talk to you then?”
“They know I want to see my family and feel that getting in the way would be rude.”
She was impressed by the walls, the houses, the gardens and then by the palace. We rode up to one of the side entrances and turned our horses over to the grooms and servants. She needed to be convinced that it was all right, this time, to let the staff handle the details. I told her it was because they were doing it for my mother.
I told her that my mother knew the Prince Consort personally.
We passed into a small courtyard and there we met with my parents. It was a curious thing feeling her emotions as she was deciding if my parents properly appreciated me. Flessa felt it too and approved.
We went inside and mother said that a luncheon had been set up in the garden for the family. Then we met some of the servants and councilors, and they called her new mother-in-law “Your majesty” and me “Your Highness” and we had to pull her off the wall—figuratively speaking, of course.
She forgave me when she discovered she could have a hot bath everyday. She and your grandmother hit it off wonderfully and proceeded to list all my failings. Breslar, of course, doted on her. He did better than I ever did about getting information from her about her past, but only by trading stories about my past—the good ones we never are going to tell you, because you have enough bad ideas on your own.
Copyright © 2021 by Robert W. Dills