Chapter 9 No.9

Present Time

Yelena grinned as she tucked her skirts into her girdle and twisted her braids back behind her head. She blew a stray hair out of her face and rested the basket against her hip as she surveyed the courtyard. She dropped her eyes to the children that gathered around her, with their own baskets held ready and their faces bright and eager.

"Are you ready?" She asked them and waited for their chorus of agreement. "You know the rules. Anyone who smashes an egg is disqualified. The person with the most whole eggs wins. Today's prize is a cake baked by Arithen which contains the last of the keep's berries. Yes," she nodded when their eyes jerked up to her. "It smells wonderful.

"She has also been generous with the honey," she continued. "It's big enough to share with whomsoever that you choose, or to keep and make yourself sick eating all to yourself. Your choice entirely. And all you have to do to be the winner is to collect the most eggs. Now, I'm sure that I'm going to win this cake myself, but as I am so much bigger and wiser than you all, I am accepting a handicap. I will count to one hundred in human and Fae before I join the hunt.

"So, are you ready?" She waited until they all tensed prepared to run. "No smashed eggs," she repeated, deliberately torturing them by keeping them waiting. "On the count of three, then? One... Two... Three!"

The courtyard exploded into squealing activity as the children scattered. Yelena rocked back onto her heels laughing at the spectacle, as chickens flapped and scurried in protest, some children seeming to be determined to extract the eggs from the source.

"I'm sorry for the affront, ladies," she said to the hens, and then sighed. Whilst the daily egg hunt was fun, the eggs produced by the chickens did not equal their need for food and the seed supplies in the cellars were diminishing. She wanted to retain enough seed to, hopefully, one day, resow the fallow fields, she did not want to feed it to the feathered fowls.

Was it more beneficial to continue to feed them, for the eggs, or to kill them for the meat? The thought made her groan.

"My Lady!" One of the children tugged at her apron, drawing her attention. She looked down in surprise, wondering why the boy had abandoned his hunt and chance at the cake, following his pointing finger to the road from the village.

Wagons approached. A great number of them, along with a company of horsemen and four carriages. She recognised the Fae workmanship on the ornate carriages. The pennants flown and the embroidery on the gambesons glittered with silver thread in the morning light. She could just made out the spread of wing, the curl of tail...

Her basket fell to the ground, and she pressed her hand to her chest, her heart seeming to strike fiercely enough to break free.

None of the knights and men at arms that rode with the company wore his armour. Could he be in a carriage? It would be so unlike him... Her eyes lifted automatically to the sky, but there was not even a cloud crossing the blue.

She gripped the boy's shoulder. "Run for Arithen or Frendia, tell them that we have Fae guests approaching. Tell them to secure the wine cellar. I promise you a treat to make up for your loss this morning. Run!"

The boy ran, and she smoothed her hands over her apron anxiously, before remembering her braids. She released them, using her fingers to comb her unruly hair to order. She tugged her sleeves over her thumbs and used the heel of her hands to scrub at her face.

Was it him?

Sylvin... The twisting pain in her heart yearned as the horses passed through the crumpled walls of the outer courtyard. She saw the knights and men-at-arms looked at the fallen walls and overgrown killing field with surprise.

The carriage reached the bailey, and the pages opened the door and positioned the stairs handing down the Fae dignitaries from within. Their long hair and intricate hairstyles, their flowing robes and adornments confused her eyes for a moment as they picked their way through the muck to the stairs, looking around them with bewilderment, as if utterly unsure of where they had found themselves.

"Girl," a Fae man clicked his fingers before Yelena to draw her attention. "Run inside and fetch the Lord and Lady of this... place. Have the servants prepare baths, a meal, and rooms. We have come a long way, and are," he made a long-suffering face. "Very weary. Too weary for this."

Yelena looked from his soft-soled slippers that already wore the tide of mud, up the layered silk robes, to his straightened and waxed hair that she was not entirely sure was not a wig. "The Lord has taken to bed with an illness, and the Lady... Well, that is I."

"Lady Yelena," his shock was evident. "The Lord Sylvin's wife?" His eyes travelled from head to toe and back up, and his expression was uncertain.

"Welcome to Elliard," her smile was a twist of her lips. "Please come inside and make yourself at home in the main hall. The servants will see to your needs, but I am, oh," she laughed as a group of children approached. "Well done! I am afraid My Lord," she said to him. "I am currently engaged in judging a very important competition between the knights and Ladies of the keep and must announce the victor."

"Eggs," he said, bewildered.

"As precious as gold," she told him. "When food is scarce and bellies hungry."

"I... see," his eyes went to the chain of wagons and carriages and the men and women who were gingerly edging their way towards the stairs on which they stood. "This is... unexpected."

"This, My Lord, is war," she told him grimly. "You may as well accustom yourself to it, not much has changed in the last five years, other than a decrease in men, and an increase in orphans."

"The war has ended, My Lady," he told her, sounding surprised. "You did not know?"

"No," she jerked her eyes to his and saw the truth in his expression. "Who... who won, My Lord?"

"I am not a Lord," he said quietly, and there was almost a gentleness to his tone, as if he were unaccustomed to the sentiment, and not entirely comfortable with it. "And we won. The Fae won. Of course. We had your Lord Husband on our side, we could hardly do otherwise."

"Is he..." Her voice broke and she looked away, fighting back the emotions that rose, threatening to overwhelm her. "Is he...?" She could not finish the question, nor look at him as she asked him, swallowing hard to hold back the tears.

"Yes, My Lady," he murmured. "The Lord Sylvin is whole and hale. He is," he cleared his throat and shook back his shoulders. "Being entertained by the royal family. The festivities are expected to take weeks, as is his due. We are sent in advance to prepare the keep..." He faded off. "And there is much to prepare," he added. "Before the Lord decides what he wishes to... do with this holding."

"Do with it?" She looked up at him. "What do you mean by: Do with it?"

"My Lady," he gestured expansively, his face passing through several emotions. "It... Well, look around you, My Lady. This is hardly the home of a hero, is it?"

Her breath sighed out of her, and she bowed her head beneath the weight of his words.

"The royal families," he continued, his tone clearly trying to break to her something that he thought she should already know. "Value My Lord Sylvin highly, My Lady. The Royal regard for his achievements... is high. The kingdoms doors are..." he paused delicately. "Thrown open before him."

She swallowed back the pain that speared through her chest like shards of glass. "I will speak to my servants and arrange accommodation for your party, My Lord..."

"Diersen," he provided, watching as she followed the stairs into the keep.

She bowed over in the tight, private space between the hall and kitchen, bracing her hands against her knees, as she allowed herself a moment of pain, the sound that tore through her teeth somewhere between a whimper and a wail – utterly foreign to her ears, so that for a moment she wondered at its origin, and, as she looked up, meeting the eyes of a maid and the page before her, saw that they shared her bewilderment.

The maid hurried the page past her and out into the hall, and Yelena ground out her pain against her shoulder before sobbing in her breath and scrubbing her face with her shirtsleeves. She walked into kitchen with an aplomb that was all front and no substance.

"I'll take the Lord up his meal," she told Frendia.

She took the tray that the servants hastily assembled and carried it through the suddenly busy hall. The wagons were being unloaded and she saw treasures the like that Elliard had never possessed spread out across the less-than-clean flagstone floor, bolts of cloth and furs, chests of coin and gemstones, artworks and statues, and cups and plates of gold and silver...

She turned her back to it all and walked up the stairs towards her father's chamber.

He was sitting up in bed, his eyes heavily shadowed, but the sounds of the courtyard and hall below carried up through the open shutters drawing his attention and interest. "What is it, Yelena?" He asked her, poised between anxiety and eagerness.

"Um," she slid the tray onto the bed at his side. "The war has been won by the Fae, father."

"And... Sylvin?" He wondered.

She avoided looking at him, fussing with the furnishings, discarded clothes, maps, and cushions... "He is... He is well, father. Celebrating his successes with the royal family. He sent ahead... oh, treasures, and Fae nobles. They are making themselves at home below," she smiled stoically. "All is well."

"He will come," he saw more than she wanted him to. "He will come back. He always has."

"Yes," she inclined her head, her smile feeling false and stiff on her lips. "I had best go," she said. "Guests..." She laid her hand on his brow and tried again to use her power to heal him, feeling as if her magic pressed up against a wall. She sighed. "I am sorry," she told him. "I am not as good as mother."

"Yelena," he covered her hand with his own. "Sometimes it is just... Fate."

"No," she shook her head. "No, I refuse to believe that. Don't even think that father. This is not... it just is not."

He patted her hand. "Nothing but an unseasonable ailment," he told her.

"That is all," she said, although no Fae had ever suffered such a thing.

As she closed the chamber door behind her, she leaned back against it, and fought off the scream that threatened to rise from the heart shaped box that she kept locked tight within her. "That is all," she repeated. "That is all."

"My Lady," Arithen stood at the top of the staircase. "I am sorry to bother you," her expression was sympathetic. "But what are we to feed these newest arrivals? They have wagons loaded with gold and silks... but no food."

Yelena blew out a steadying breath. "I guess we have seen the last egg hunt," she decided. "Kill the chickens."