By the Light of the Moon (8 page)

“And that was when the king proclaimed that land and title should henceforth never be divided between brothers,” Brock continued in his crackly voice. Moira rested her face on her hands and quite without meaning to, pushed out her bottom lip.

“Land and title would always fall to the first-born son, unless he was cast out. In that case, the second born son would step up in the line of succession. Where a lord or monarch did not sire natural-born sons, his younger brother has the best claim, but he may also adopt or chose a daughter’s husband for the task. This is where the law grows unclear again and even the war of 930 of the New Reckoning … ”

He was moving the pieces again and Moira couldn’t suppress the yawn that fought its way into her lungs. It earned her a stern glance and she looked up at her old tutor with that sweet apology she reserved for few. Brock had always been around her, all her life. He’d always been old and wise and kind to her and she usually preferred his lessons by far over the ones the governess imparted on her. But that day, she was distracted and tired and the legal justification for her predicament made her grouchy and disinterested.

“But women can’t inherit … ” she said with the quiet and subdued sound of indignation. She knew why of course, her father had reiterated it too many times to count, but it didn’t seem right. Not really.

“No, my lady,” Brock said quite gently. He was normally the only person outside of her family who called her by her given name; however, there were times when he chose the formal title. It felt strange to her.

“Women have their place in government and any wise ruler will seek his wife’s or mother’s advice in matters of family and education. But women have no head for war … ” he smiled, a knowing smile that rearranged the myriads of wrinkles on his face in a quite pleasant way as he looked at the army figurines. Moira made a face.

“A woman can rule in an emergency, such as the death of her husband — but only if she has passed her thirty-fifth birthday and is believed mature enough for such a task. It is also almost always temporary until a son is old enough or the line of succession can be established.”

Looking at the map again, Moira stood up. Her long dress swished against the stone floor as she regarded the figurines closely.

“Peliam,” she said pointing at a northern fief. “Ruled by a Lady Elena Peliam for fifteen years.”

“Until her son came of age.” Brock agreed. “Lord Justo Peliam, a good ruler by all accounts. As was his mother.”

Moira’s hand continued to trail over the old leather. It was soft and beautiful, a perfect piece of craftsmanship. As she moved to the right, her fingers traced the blue line of the river Vime until it reached the lake and a ghostly smile appeared on her lips at the familiar names.

“Tell me about the Fae wars again … ” she asked.

Brock looked up in mild surprise and his lip curled in a crooked smile.

“I told you, women have no mind for wars. I never have to repeat mathematics or the knowledge of plants and the body.”

Moira glared but then she exhaled a defeated sigh through her nose and gave him the sweet smile of a dedicated student. It was true; she did find war stories tedious and if that made her part of the reason why nobody would let her inherit her father’s estate despite the fact that Rochmond hadn’t been at war with anyone for over one hundred years, then maybe she had to accept that. No matter how little sense it made to her. But now she did want to know about the Blaidyn and their place in the human world and how they came there. She knew she had been told some of it before, but the details escaped her.

“Why don’t we start by you telling me what you
do
remember?” He started again and with a slight note of mischief that made his old face suddenly look like that of a boy’s, he added; “Considering how my voice seems to put you sleep when I start to talk about history … ”

“Just war history … ” Moira tried to defend herself but then yielded his point with a rare smile and nodded. Pausing for a moment as she studied the map again to gather her thoughts, she finally made an all-encompassing gesture over the length and width of the table.

“I remember that the Fae wars started much earlier and then were spread all across the realm,” she began. Moira knew she was not stupid, she just lacked in two general aspects; she was stubborn about things she did not have an interest in studying, and she showed little desire to prove her lessons or her intelligence, which made it difficult to assess what she actually knew.

“They laid claim to the same land we did … ” she said with an obvious sigh. Brock knew this was one of the reasons she didn’t like war stories. “And for some reason we couldn’t all live together and find a compromise … and so there was war in a lot of places. And I remember they were the ones who … made the Blaidyn but I’m not sure what that means.”

Brock raised his brows, studying her intently. “By magic,” he answered, shrugged and raised a brow. He knew that especially the younger ones who had never seen magic at work had started to understand it as metaphor but he knew better. “They took the strength and character of the wolf and imbued him with strategic intelligence and an agile body that could hold a sword as well as it could bare its teeth and tear a man to pieces. They created a fighting machine.”

Moira eyed him with suspicion.

“Fae are … were, Fae were immortal. They needed mortal fighters to send into the fray. Being killed in battle was quite ignominious to the likes of them, you understand.”

Moira nodded. “But they changed sides.”

“Yes, they did. It was hundreds of years later and they had changed. They had their own settlements and their own … ideas. They thought that they had better chances with the humans and threw their lot in with them, with us. It changed the war and the Fae were pushed back further and further.”

“Until the fighting was contained here in Rochmond.”

“Yes, the very same. I did expect you to remember that much.”

“And then we won?”

“Yes. In so many words. The Fae were pushed against the shores of the Lake Coru, they were cut off from any escape route into the mountains and they were utterly outnumbered.”

“What happened to them?” Moira asked, frowning. She had heard terrible stories about Fae deeds but the idea that an entire population was wiped from the face of the earth didn’t quite feel right, even if they were monsters.

“They died, Moira. At least most of them. We never heard from them again so it is quite likely that they all perished. Every last one of them.”

Moira nodded, again staring at the painted lake; dark blue on the worn leather, buttery in its fine sheen. Its eastern shore seemed to have just the right shape to close in on an enemy army, she assumed. The real lake looked so innocent now, sad and deep and usually covered in a grey sheen of mist.

“Where did they come from?” Moira asked then, lifting her eyes to the old man.

“Nobody knows,” Brock said quietly. He turned away and looked over toward the small window. The library was almost exclusively lit by oil lamps, which while dangerous to the gilded paper in the wrong hands, was better than open daylight, which was dangerous always, eating at the fibers every minute, every hour of every day. But it made the library a stiff closed-up place that lacked the freedom to look out into the distance, save for those few thin slabs toward the ceiling which allowed some fresh air to flow when opened. Now, it just showed a sliver of sky, a grayish blue swirl of clouds.

“Some say they have always been here or came here one day, same as us.” Brock continued when he realized that an expression of general ignorance had failed to satisfy his charge’s curiosity. “Others say they were a hostile force intent on conquering the realm.”

“That’s how Father tells it,” Moira said quietly. “The Fae were intent on enslaving humanity, just as they enslaved the Blaidyn in order to attain that power. But humanity fought back and prevailed … ”

Brock narrowed his eyes at her but didn’t say anything. Moira remembered little of the dates or wars Brock talked about when they turned their lessons to history, but she remembered other comments. There was the war for the city of Lauryl just before her father was born and Brock had shown her history books and the way they described as a force of conquering heroes, saving the city from a ruinous regime. But he had also told her of that regime the way he remembered it as a young man and how from his perspective, the conquering heroes had been nothing of the sort.

Nobody had ever told her what kind of people Fae really were. She couldn’t quite believe the stories of their powers; strange and outlandish and utterly too much like something a bolstering hero would want to hear about his enemies in a song about his victory.

“Why did the Blaidyn betray them?” she asked next, carefully crossing her legs under the long woolen gown and brushing her hair back, where always it defied the braid and little pins.

“They … thought that they would be better off throwing in their lot with humans,” Brock explained hesitantly. “According to legend, the Fae created them because death to an immortal is a horrifying prospect and they were dying by the dozen. They needed a force that would enable them to fight wars without as many casualties among their ranks.”

Moira nodded thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t want to live like that either.”

“Everybody has their role to play, my lady.”

She didn’t reply, just looked at the map and shrugged after a long time.

“Blaidyn are strong, very strong and very fast. They were a valuable addition to any army. They decided the war.”

“But there aren’t songs sung about them,” she said when her mouth felt like forming words again. She didn’t know what it was that made her feel uneasy or on edge, or why she needed to talk about these issues, but Brock was the only person she could ask.

“They killed thousands of men before they turned on their masters,” Brock explained with a shrug. “Treason can be necessary, but it is never heroic, milady.”

“Why is it treason?”

Brock looked at her face. She seemed utterly innocent in that moment and he felt a familiar surge of sympathy for the strange girl. Just for a flutter of her heavy eyelids, he had the desire of the younger man to touch those flyaway strands of hair and set her mind to rest but he quickly quelled those urges.

“I assume you are speaking philosophically?” he asked, a hint of a smile on his face.

“Well, if they were created to serve someone … they never had a choice. Nobody ever asked them if they wanted to fight for people who just needed them to die for their wars. They never promised, or if they promised, they had no choice. Treason is if … ” but her voice gave out against the steady glance of her tutor.

“Treason is the act of defiance against your betters, Moira,” he said gently, not unaware of her struggles and her rebellious little head, trapped in an oddly feeble body riddled with insecurities, little ticks and twitches. Not then though, there in that room, she sat quietly, eyes wide with focus. An odd beauty, but a beauty, nonetheless.

“What can they do?” she asked then, changing her line of questioning when the last one had made her feel small and insignificant.

“It depends on their age and their experience, but you don’t have to be afraid of the one your father hired. They are turncoats but they are not cruel, really. Not known to harm the innocent.”

“I am not afraid.”

“Good. And they do have weaknesses … ”

She looked up and Brock knew that he had her attention then.

“Fire, for one. They like water, but fire makes them uneasy. Too much sun. And then there’s the full moon, of course.”

When he saw her brows rise again, at that he let his eyes swing to the sliver of sky displayed by the narrow window. It was still light out, but afternoon was visibly drawing into evening. “You must know that the full moon compels them to shift into their animal form, so at night … ”

“ … they aren’t human.” she finished, wrinkling her brows in thought.

“They are never human, milady,” Brock warned. His eyes flickered. “Don’t you forget that.”

Moira looked down and shrugged her delicate shoulders. She didn’t approve of Owain’s presence in their house, but it was difficult to see him as anything but a person. He was quiet and polite and she couldn’t find animal or monster in his countenance.

“Are you keeping up with your star charts and the moon calendar?” Brock finally asked after allowing her to follow her own thoughts for a while. He was pleased when she nodded with a bit of an eager smile and he gave her an approving one in return. “Have you found any influence of the moon on your insomnia?”

“No,” she offered with a shrug, “Not really. We’ll see tomorrow.”

Brock grinned knowingly. “Indeed,” he said, and then straightened himself up to his full height, which despite his age, was still impressive. He let his eyes linger on her face for a moment longer, making sure she followed the steps he had so neatly laid out for her. He was positive of it when he saw a small flicker move across her face and then a smile. Then he patted her shoulder and ended the lesson.

• • •

Deagan was still angry. He had taken his favorite horse out of the rickety Bramble Keep stables — just one of the many things he was planning to modernize once this pathetic ruin was his — and gone for a ride and a hunt in the nearby woods. His crossbow had hit the mark in a squirrel, hardly worth the bolt that had torn through its tiny body like a sword through water and shattered on the branch behind it. He had left it for the carnivores and when no other wildlife appeared, he’d lost patience and steered his stallion back toward the Keep.

He and his delegation had been set up in a usually unused wing of the building. The vague smell of damp and moss seemed to hang there in a way it didn’t in the other rooms. It was a clear sign of tight-fisted housekeeping not to keep them constantly lit and heated. Another item on his ever-growing list of necessary improvements and he was beginning to think that the young lady was in need of several herself.

“More wine,” he grunted at his manservant when he stepped into his chambers to stand by the fireplace. In the capital, it was still summer with warm glowing days; here, the change of color in the leaves had just begun and there was already an uncomfortable chill in the air. And of course, the village tailor didn’t sell anything he’d consider wearing. Even the Rochmonds didn’t seem very intent on displaying their social stature through their clothing. All the wool and fur and leather made more sense now, but there had to be something that could be done with it that livened up the fabric and the dire appeal of a room filled with backwater nobles. Maybe he really was wasting his time here. The income from crops, lumber and ore from the mountain mines explained the fief’s riches and the old man didn’t seem to spend a lot.