So the refugees continued to come, first in a trickle, then in a steady stream. As he was acquainted with them and knew first-hand the problems they faced, Tamanier Ambrodel was chosen by Lady Nirakina to be her chief assistant. He proved a tireless worker, but even with his efforts, the camp along the riverbank became dirty and rowdy as more and more frightened settlers swelled its ranks. A pall of smoke and fear hovered over the refugee camp. It did not take long for the residents of Silvanost to lose their sympathy and regard the refugees with disgust.
This day Nirakina had gone down to the water’s edge to speak to the refugees as they came ashore. The weary, grimy travelers were amazed to see the speaker’s wife waiting on the muddy bank, her richly made gown trailing in the mud, only Tamanier Ambrodel standing beside her.
“They are so sad, so tired,” she murmured to him. He stood by her side making notations on a wax tablet.
“It’s a sad thing to lose your home and those you love best, my lady.” Tamanier filled a square of twenty and blocked it off. “That makes two hundred and twenty in one barge, including sixty-six humans and half-humans.” He eyed her uncertainly. “The speaker will not be pleased that those not of our blood are entering the city.”
“I know the speaker’s heart,” Nirakina said a little sharply. Her slight figure bristled with indignation. “It is the others at court who want to cause trouble for these poor folk.”
An elf woman struggled ashore from a small boat, carrying a baby in her arms. She slipped and fell to her knees in the muddy water. Other exhausted refugees tramped past her. Nirakina, without hesitation, waded into the press of silent people and helped the elf woman to her feet. Their eyes met, and the raggedly dressed woman said, “Thank you, my lady.”
With nothing else to say, she held her child to her shoulder and slogged ashore. Nirakina was standing, openly admiring the woman’s dogged courage, when a hand touched her arm.
“You’d best be careful, Lady,” Tamanier said.
Unheeding, Nirakina replied, “The priests and nobles will fume about this, about the mixed-blood people especially.” Her serene expression darkened. “They should all be made to come here and see the poor innocents they would deny comfort and shelter!”
Tamanier gently tugged Lady Nirakina back to the riverbank.
On the other side of the city, the Tower of the Stars rang with denunciations of the refugees.
“When the gods created the world, they made our race first, to be the guardians of right and truth,” declared Firincalos, high priest of E’li. “It is our sacred duty to preserve ourselves as the gods made us, a pure race, always recognizable as Silvanesti.”
“Well said! Quite true!” The assembly of nobles and clerics called out in rising voices.
Sithas watched his father. The speaker listened placidly to all this, but he did not look pleased. It was not so much that his father disagreed with the learned Firincalos; Sithas had heard similar sentiments espoused before. But he knew the speaker hated to be lectured to by anyone, for any reason.
Since the Trial Days, Sithas had been at his father’s side daily, taking a hand in the day-to-day administration of the country. He’d learned new respect for Sithel when he saw how his father managed to balance the pleas of the priests, the ideas of the nobles, and the needs of the guilds against his own philosophy of what was best for Silvanesti.
Sithas had learned respect—but not admiration. He believed his father was too flexible, gave in too often to the wrong people. It surprised him, for he had always thought of Sithel as a strong ruler. Why didn’t he simply command obedience instead of constantly compromising?
Sithel waved for the assembled elves to be quiet. Miritelisina, high priestess of Quenesti Pah, was standing, seeking the speaker’s grant to comment. The hall quieted, and Sithel bade Miritelisina begin.
“I must ask the pure and righteous Firincalos what he would do with the husbands, wives, and children now languishing in huts along the riverbank, those who are not pure in our blood yet who have the deepest ties to some number of our race?” Her rich voice filled the high tower. In her youth, Miritelisina had been a renowned singer, and she played upon her listeners with all her old skills. “Shall we throw them into the river? Shall we drive them from the island, back onto the swords and torches of the bandits who drove them east?”
A few harsh voices cried “Yes!” to her questions.
Sithas folded his arms and studied Miritelisina. She cut a regal figure in her sapphire headband and white robe with its trailing, sky-blue sash. Her waist-length, flaxen hair rippled down her back as she swept a pointing finger over the mostly male crowd of elves.
“Shame on you all!” she shouted. “Is there no mercy in Silvanost? The humans and half-humans are not here because they want to be! Evil has been done to them, evil that must be laid at someone’s door. But to treat them like animals, to deny them simple shelter, is likewise evil. My holy brothers, is this the way of rightness and truth of which the honorable Firincalos speaks? It does not sound that way to me. I would more expect to hear such harsh sentiments from devotees of the Dragonqueen!”
Sithas stiffened. The willful priestess had gone too far! Firincalos and his colleagues thought so, too. They pushed to the front of the crowd, outraged at being compared to the minions of the Queen of Evil. The air thickened with denunciations, but Sithel, sitting back on his throne, did nothing to restrain the angry clerics.
Sithas turned to his father. “May I speak?” he asked calmly. “I’ve been waiting for you to take a stand,” Sithel said impatiently. “Go ahead. But remember, if you swim with snakes, you may get bitten.”
Sithas bowed to his father. “This is a hard time for our people,” he began loudly. The wrangling on the floor subsided, and the prince lowered his voice. “It is evident from events in the West that the humans, probably with the support of the emperor of Ergoth, are trying to take over our plains and woodland provinces, not by naked conquest, but by displacing our farmers and traders. Terror is their tool, and so far it is working far better than they could have dreamed. I tell you this first and ask you all to remember who is responsible for the situation in which we now find ourselves.”
Sithel nodded with satisfaction. Sithas noted his father’s reaction and went on.
“The refugees come to Silvanost seeking our protection, and we cannot fail to give it. It is our duty. We protect those not of our race because they have come on bended knee, as subjects must do before their lords. It is only right and proper that we shield them from harm, not only because the gods teach the virtue of mercy, but also because these are the people who grow our crops, sell our goods, who pay their taxes and their fealty.” A murmur passed through the assembly. Sithas’s calm, rational tone, so long honed in debates with the priests of Matheri, dampened the anger that had reigned earlier. The clerics relaxed from their previous trembling outrage. Miritelisina smiled faintly.
Sithas dropped his hands to his hips and looked over the gathering with stern resolve. “But make no mistake! The preservation of our race is of the greatest importance. Not merely the purity of our blood, but the purity of our customs, traditions, and laws. For that reason, I ask the speaker to decree a new place of refuge for the settlers, on the western bank of the Thon-Thalas, for the sole purpose of housing all humans and half-humans. Further, I suggest that all non-Silvanesti be sent across to there from the current tent village.”
There was a moment of silence as the assembly took in this idea, then the tower erupted with calls of “Well spoken! Well said!”
“What about the husbands and wives who are full-blooded Silvanesti?” demanded Miritelisina.