Lara (8 page)

“Lara must come,” her father said.

“But it will not be her home,” Susanna said carelessly. She could think of nothing else but that she would soon have a real house.

“Where I am, my daughter will always have a home,” John Swiftsword said sternly to his wife. “She has earned the right to see what her sacrifice has gained us.”

Susanna’s face fell as she realized how unkind her words had sounded. She turned to her stepdaughter. “Oh, Lara, forgive me!”

Lara laughed, and put her arm through Susanna’s. “Let’s go and see your new dwelling,” she said softly. “I know you meant me no harm.”

Outside they discovered a cart drawn by two pretty gray donkeys, with John’s horse tied to the back of it. He mounted Aristaeus while the young page helped Lara and Susanna into the cart, which was white and had gaily painted wheels. They sat facing one another upon red leather benches. The page joined the driver at the front of the cart, and they were off, the soon-to-be Crusader Knight riding by their side. Reaching the Garden District, they were met by Sir Ferris.

“There are several fine houses just now available,” he told them, smiling broadly. “I, of course, have my preference, but I will be curious to know which dwelling pleases my lady Susanna.” He helped the two from their cart. “We’ll walk,” he said. “The day is fair, and most are at the tournament.”

“Oh,” Susanna said nervously, “should we have gone today?”

“Nay, my dear,” the old Crusader Knight told her. “Your man has won his place, and now he is not expected back at the tournament field until his knighting day.”

“I should not like to do the wrong thing,” Susanna confided to Sir Ferris. “This is all so new for me, and I am, after all, just a farmer’s daughter.”

“So are many of the women you will soon meet among our stratum, although some have forgotten their humbler beginnings and occasionally need to be reminded,” Sir Ferris chuckled wickedly. “I am very good at that.”

Susanna laughed at the twinkle in his eye when he spoke. “I think, sir, you were a most naughty fellow in your youth.”

“Still am!” came the quick reply.

They were shown seven homes, and Susanna marveled at the size and number of the chambers. She exclaimed at the wonderful light, and the privacy. Never in all her days had she seen such fine homes except on the day she had gone into the Golden District. These houses were smaller, of course, but they still had many of the same fine features. It was difficult, but she finally selected a house built around an inner courtyard with a shallow, narrow reflecting pool in its center. At first she considered if the pool might not be a danger to Mikhail, but Sir Ferris pooh-poohed her fears.

“You will be given three well-trained household slaves, my dear. A maidservant to help you, a nursemaid for your children, for you will certainly have more, and of course, one manservant to do the heavy work and look after your little garden. You have chosen wisely, for this is the dwelling I would have chosen.”

“We have a garden?” Susanna was surprised. The house itself with its inner courtyard seemed more than adequate.

“A walled garden behind your home,” he answered her. “It has an apple tree.”

Susanna began to weep softly. “There was an apple tree outside my bedchamber at home on my father’s farm,” she said.

Sir Ferris patted her arm, and smiled, well pleased. “Now that is settled I shall send you and Lara off to the Crusader Knights warehouse so you may choose your furnishings. Men are useless in such an endeavor. You may bring a few personal possessions from the Quarter, but nothing else,” he explained. “We like our new knights and their families to fit right in. Your husband will meet you at home later, my dear.”

They returned to the cart and were taken out of the Garden District to a large building on the edge of the City. There they were greeted by the manager, a self-important little man, who escorted them through the warehouse as Susanna made her choices of furniture, draperies and all manner of household goods, Lara at her side. When they had concluded their business the manager assured them all would be delivered on the morrow early, and if my lady would be there to tell the movers where to put everything it would certainly be helpful.

“Gracious!” Susanna exclaimed as they were returned to the Quarter. “I have never in all my life had such a day, nor could have even imagined one like this.”

“We are both beginning new lives,” Lara responded. The Garden District was lovely and the house Susanna had chosen was beautiful. Lara wondered if her new home would be as fine. But then the Pleasure Quarter was said to have some of the loveliest houses in all of the City. She had never been there, of course, but it was said, and if it was said, then it surely must be true.

The following day when Lara and Susanna arrived at the new house they found three slaves awaiting them. The trio bowed politely.

“I am Nels, and this is Yera and Ove,” the man said, indicating the women who stood beside him. “We now belong to John Swiftsword, and are bound to obey him and his wife, mistress.”

For a moment Susanna was speechless, but Lara quickly spoke up. “My stepmother, the lady Susanna, thanks you. Serve her well and you will be treated well. Serve her badly and you will be beaten.”

Susanna now recovered. “Which among you is the nursemaid?” she asked. She didn’t know what she was going to do without Lara, who seemed to have instincts beyond her knowledge and above her station.

“I am, my lady.” The younger of the two women curtsied.

“And you are?” Susanna said.

“Ove, my lady.”

“My son is called Mikhail. He does not yet walk, but he will in a few weeks. You must keep him from the reflecting pool at all times, Ove.”

“Yes, my lady,” the girl replied.

The furniture arrived, and the rest of the day was spent deciding where it would be placed. Yera took charge of all the household supplies, and began to set up the kitchen. Susanna was kept busy running from place to place, making decisions, while Lara quietly directed Nels in the hanging of the draperies. On the following day Nels arrived in a cart at the hovel to collect the few personal items they would be taking with them. When they departed on the day of the knighting they would not return again; a young mercenary and his bride-to-be had already been assigned their hovel. At the end of the knighting ceremony Lara would spend a final night with her family. On the following day she would be taken to Gaius Prospero’s home, and after that she knew not what.

On the day of the knighting, the Master of the Merchants sent his litters for them as he had on the first day of the tourney. John had already gone ahead. Tania arrived once again, and this time she braided Lara’s magnificent long hair into a single braid into which she wove fresh flowers. Lara and Susanna donned their fine gowns. Tania departed, and without a backward glance Susanna picked up her son, and hurried to the waiting litter, but Lara remained for several more minutes.

Looking about her she felt tears coming, and forced them back. This was her home. The only home she had ever known. She had been comfortable here with her grandmother Ina and her father. And after her grandmother’s death, and the passing of the initial sadness, she had never been lonely. There was dear old Mistress Mildred, her grandmother’s best friend nearby, and then Susanna had come. She knew every inch of the Quarter for she had explored it over the years, but she had never had any friends. As a child she remembered playing with other children, but after her grandmother died there were fewer and then none of them. She had heard the word “faerie” murmured often enough as she passed by. Why did people hate her mother’s race so much?

Her grandmother had said it was because they were so beautiful, and people were jealous of such beauty, but not just the beauty, Ina said. There was faerie magic to be feared. Faeries were different from ordinary folk. You never really knew what a faerie would do. They could be the kindest of all creatures, and the most vindictive. Their women seduced human menfolk out of spite because their menfolk seduced human women, who seemed to give them intense pleasure. More so, Ina said with a wise nod, than the faerie women who had cold hearts. Lara knew she looked like her mother for her father had always said so. But did she have a faerie’s cold heart, she wondered?

With a final look around the hovel, Lara stepped through the door for the final time. There she found Mistress Mildred waiting. The old woman hugged the girl, and there were tears streaming down her face. Reaching up with a dainty hand Lara brushed some of them from Mistress Mildred’s lined face, and smiled sweetly.

“Don’t weep,” she said softly.

“I’ve known you since the day your father came to his mother, my friend Ina, with you all swaddled in his arms.”

“I wasn’t born here?” Lara was surprised.

“Nay, you was born in an enchanted place, or so your da told his mother. You was six months old when the faerie woman who bore you left him. He awoke one morning to find himself, and you, on the edge of the forestland. He said that he had gone to sleep the previous evening in the magic place where he lived with the faerie, and you were in your cradle.” Mistress Mildred shook her head. “Your da was barely fifteen when the faerie woman lured him away from his family’s farm. Your grandfather had died during that time, and your uncle, who had inherited the farm, would not allow his brother to remain when he returned with you. He did not even want you in his house for you were half faerie and he feared you, but your grandmother’s will prevailed, and he said you might remain until your father joined the mercenaries. Once that was accomplished your grandmother brought you to live in the City. She was so angry at her eldest son’s behavior that she stayed to care for you rather than go back. Ina never spoke to him again, or even saw his children. I know he did not come to her departure ceremony after she died. I don’t believe your father ever forgave his brother for it.”

“How odd that I should know none of this,” Lara murmured.

“Tonight, before you are separated from your father, ask him to tell you about your mother, child,” Mistress Mildred said. Then she kissed Lara on the forehead, and gave her another hug. “The Celestial Actuary will protect you, I know.”

“Thank you,” Lara responded, kissing the old lady’s withered cheek, and hugging her back. Then she turned and got into her litter. Drawing the curtains she settled back. She would not look again. She felt the bearers lifting her transport up, and they began to hurry through the City toward the Tournament Gate and to the grandstand where she would alight and enter Gaius Prospero’s box once again. She could hear the murmur of the crowds as they drew closer to the tourney grounds. Now and again the litter bearers would slow until the mercenaries hired to clear their way could force people aside.

When the litter was finally set down it was Aubin Prospero who drew the curtains aside, and handed her out. “My father has sent me to escort you,” he said. “I am learning his trade, and will one day be the Master of the Merchants myself.”

“Who told you that?” Lara asked him as she exited the vehicle. “It is an elected office, young master.”

“My mother told me,” he replied. “And my mother is always correct. Come!” And he led her up the steps of the box.

“How old are you?” Lara asked him.

“I was eight on my last natal day,” the boy responded.

“Do you not play games?” He was just eight and he sounded like an old man.

“Games are for those with no goals in life,” Aubin Prospero answered her. “Games are for the poor. I have no time for games. There is so much to learn.”

Lara shook her head. Poor child, she thought to herself.

“Ah, Lara, here you are at last!” Gaius Prospero was beaming at her. Reaching out, his grasp closed about the gold chain with its crystal star. “What is this?” he asked her, curious, fingering the star that seemed warm to his touch.

“It is the only thing other than life that my mother gave me,” she answered him. “You will not take it from me, my lord?”

Gaius Prospero thought a moment, and then he said, “Nay, I will not. It burnishes your natural beauty. Each time I see you I am amazed at your beauty, my dear. Are you excited?”

“To see my father knighted? Oh, yes, my lord!” Lara said.

“Nay, I mean about tomorrow night. Tomorrow morning you will be brought to my house, and spend your day being prepared for display that evening, when I shall accept bids for your person, my dear. But only for a day’s span. After that you must be sold promptly. It is not wise to hold choice merchandise for too long lest the excitement surrounding it wane, although I do not expect that to happen in your particular case.” He smiled broadly. “Tomorrow night will be a very exciting one for you.”

“I was not aware of how it was to be done,” Lara responded. “I have never been to a slave auction.”

“And you shall not be part of one, my dear child,” Gaius Prospero clucked. “Nothing so common for you, my beauty, as a public display. Rare merchandise is offered privately. Only a choice number of guests have been invited to view you. The following day they will return in the morning to offer me their bids. You will not be there. It will not be necessary. When the bidding has ceased, and I have accepted the highest bidder, the agreement will be struck. Under our laws Pleasures Houses can only be owned by men, but they are managed by women. Both have been invited to your displaying.”