Trailing back to the shelter, Auri straightened abruptly. "Is he in trouble?" she asked, and hurried ahead almost gleefully to make an invisible fourth in a ring around Dezart Samarin.
The others in the circle were Lord Surclere, Darian Faille and Lieutenant Faraclass="underline" all three adult Kellian in the Duchess' current entourage, trying not to loom. At least, two were: Darian Faille seemed quite inclined to loom, standing directly in front of the Dezart, holding his gaze.
"You’d think he’d look a little nervous," Auri observed. "I would be, if anyone stood over me like that. And that’s not even counting claws that could cut me open."
But the Dezart, as usual, appeared primarily entertained by the encounter, and was saying: "I’ve no objection at all. Did Hirel Falcy not tell your forebears anything of her past?"
"Hirel?" Darian Faille repeated.
"An honorific," Lord Surclere said. "It means teacher." He took a step back then, and indicated some handily arranged stones beside the path to the stream. "Please. This sounds a longer story than anticipated."
"Who is this Falcy person?" Auri asked, then made a confused face when Lord Surclere told the Dezart that Aurai had never spoken of her past, beyond that she had been a bond servant who had abandoned her post before completing her contracted period.
"Entirely true," Dezart Samarin said, after they had settled on the stones, his faint smile easing away in the face of so much Kellian gravity. "Lenaurai Falcy was a bond-servant to Emperor Arav, tasked with instructing his children in the sword arts."
"Which one was Emperor Arav?" Auri asked, as the Kellian reacted only with added stillness. "Oh, wait, I know—he was the one who was going to invade Tyrland, back when the Black Queen was in charge."
"Emperor Arav had quite a number of children," Dezart Samarin was saying. "Three by his wife, and a good dozen secondary heirs. Being sent to Hirel Falcy’s class was a kind of acknowledgement of parentage, for he expected a great deal of his children, and retained the absolute best to instruct them."
"Didn’t Emperor Arav once have an entire town pegged up at night outside their circle, just because a statue of him was allowed to fall over?" Auri said, poking her fingers casually into the Dezart’s eyes. "Why are they acting so solemn over ancient history?"
Oblivious, Samarin continued. "The Emperor himself was an excellent swordsman, and once a month he would have his children match him, to gauge how they were progressing. Wooden swords, and many bruises, and further punishment if you wept. He was particularly exacting with his heir, Kyrus." The Dezart shrugged. "They hated each other and, given the Emperor’s temperament, it was perhaps inevitable that one day the Emperor would cast aside the practice weapon, draw his sword, and attack Kyrus in earnest."
"And Kyrus defeated him. This is known." There was just a note of uncertainty in Lieutenant Faral’s voice.
"So the histories tell us," Dezart Samarin agreed. "And so the more than dozen children who witnessed the fight told the Court: Kyrus had fought with their father and their father had died. After which, Kyrus drew the severed haft of the practice sword from his father’s body, and declared I did this most firmly. Since Arav was feared and loathed almost universally by that point, this direct route to taking the throne brought no repercussions, and gave Kyrus a reputation for strength that was most useful in the early days of his rule."
"And he sent Aurai away to protect the lie," Darian Faille said, her words very quiet.
The Dezart’s faint smile briefly reappeared. "For protection, at least. He had no guarantee that every one of his many brothers and sisters would always remain silent, and indeed in later years there was more than one who, at least in their cups, hinted heavily that there was a reason their teacher vanished one night soon after Kyrus was declared Emperor.
"If Kyrus had started with a fuller mastery of Imperial bureaucracy, he would have not been so concerned about drawing attention to his teacher, and simply created an excuse to nullify the contract. Sending her away broke bond to the Imperial service, and automatically made Hirel Falcy outlaw. That meant being dragged back and a great deal of whipping, in those days. Not so dramatic as the penalty for killing the Emperor, of course. That would have been Hirel Falcy’s death, and death to all her family, and death to her line." He cocked his head to one side, meeting Darian Faille’s fixed gaze with unimpaired calm. "Unto the seventh generation, which is why, even among a rather long-lived people, this discussion is one of curiosity, not consequence. Is it not?"
The Dezart stood then, nodded politely, and walked off to the little stone shelter.
"Wasn’t all this three hundred years ago?" Auri said. "Why are they all so grim? Not that they aren’t endlessly grim anyway, and, really, I don’t think much of your Duchess' taste. This Kolan’s much more interesting."
Kellian often talked in a language of hand signals, so Fallon could not guess what Lieutenant Faral said before she walked off to re-check the horses, but Darian Faille said one thing out loud to her son before following:
"I hope the Rest survives your visitors."
Lord Surclere, expressionless as usual, returned inside, and Auri trailed him, and listened to less interesting conversations until everyone inside went to sleep. Then she again explored that day’s bounds of her existence, hunting hidden birds and animals, and making little games trying to jump between branches that barely held any substance for her. And all the while chattering on and on: an eternal, one-sided conversation, heard only in a dream.
Chapter Nineteen
After determinedly avoiding all discussion of Aurai’s Rest, Rennyn had not known whether to expect a crude collection of shacks or a fortress. Instead, the road opened upon a garden-festooned hilclass="underline" an uneven oval narrower and lower to the east, while the west rose to a high, bare crest above steep terraces. Although there were smaller trees, the space was clear of the vast Semarrak oaks, with the hill rising like an island above a sea of gold.
"Glorious," she murmured.
Rennyn felt more than saw Illidian’s approval. "Spring and autumn at the Rest are incomparable. I have missed seeing this."
He had been born here. All of the Kellian had been born at the Rest. Even after the majority had chosen to dwell in Tyrland, they travelled to the forest settlement to bear their children, and raise them away from the pressure of people who were afraid of even half-grown Kellian.
It was certainly not a hand-to-mouth childhood. The buildings—finely crafted in stone and wood—clustered down at the eastern end of the hill, and were surrounded not only by crops, but by areas of garden and lawn bounded by the inlaid path of stone that marked a well-maintained protective circle. A river curved close, but of course did not cross the circle, and there was even a water wheel turning lazily.
"How many families live here?" Dezart Samarin asked, drawing his horse level with Illidian’s.
"There are eighteen adults and four children," Illidian said, evenly. "But the Rest supported more than thirty families when permission to serve Tyrland was sought from King Theum."
"And you simply keep watch and kill any predators that stray close?"
"If necessary. There are caves beneath the hill, and we bring all the animals into them at night. The buildings are sturdy, and it is only in years where food is particularly low that the slashers or keenwolves will attempt direct assaults."
"How very interesting," Samarin said. "The surveyors who continue to insist that Semarrak is uninhabitable are perhaps broaching a less civilised part of the forest."