FIC: Andrea's Story, Part Two
Continued. This section is pretty much PG
10
Andrea sat on the edge of the hard wooden chair in the center of the study and stared at her toes, while Master Tez glowered at down at her. The objects of his ire, a couple of worn bits of scrap leather and an improvised scraper made from a discarded kitchen knife, sat on the end table beside her chair.
“What do you have to say for yourself, Andrea?” he asked coolly.
“I didn’t think I did anything wrong,” she mumbled.
“Incorrect answer,” he said. “Now look up at me and try again.”
She raised her head and looked into his green eyes. He wasn’t angry with her. Angry would have meant she could have yelled back without feeling too bad about it. No, he looked disappointed, which had to be ten times worse. “Sorry,” she whispered, feeling stupid.
“You’ll have to speak up, my hearing isn’t what it was.”
“I said I’m sorry,” she repeated.
“Better,” he allowed. “Do you know what you’re sorry about?”
“Taking those bits of scrap and the broken knife from the garbage.”
He harrumphed at her. “Partially correct. Stealing the scraps is minor offense. You’re a slave, you aren’t supposed to know better. That,” he tapped the knife, “is a weapon.”
“It’s a table knife,” she protested. “It’s not even a sharp table knife anymore.”
“Elven Law doesn’t make a distinction over that sort of thing. It is a knife, found in your quarters, outside the kitchen and the dining chamber, ergo it is a weapon in the possession of a slave.” His fist slammed down on the table and she jumped in her seat. “Slaves are executed for that, Andrea. Do you fancy me having to order Arthur to lop your head off in front of Cook and the rest of the household?”
“You wouldn’t do that!” she said.
Now Master Tez looked genuinely upset. “If it had been any other elf but me who found you with those things, they would have ordered it without a second thought. If I had found them with another elf in my company, they would have expected me to order it and questioned why I would not.”
“You would have killed me?” she asked, starting to shake.
Master Tez sighed, the anger disappearing. “No,” he admitted. “But I would have been forced to do… something… damned inconvenient to fix the situation. Perhaps even decamp to another country.”
“Give up the manor?” she asked weakly.
“Possibly,” he said. “Though fortunately it was I, not anyone else, who found you with these things, so it doesn’t matter. But that doesn’t change that you did something very foolish and will be punished for it.”
“Yes, Master,” she said, her voice properly meek.
“For two days.”
“Yes, Master.”
“In the stocks.”
“Yes, Master.” Well, that could be worse.
“Without a book.”
Andrea’s jaw dropped. “That’s not… I mean, yes, Master.” She revised her opinion. Master Tez must have been truly angry to deny her a book.
It was only mid-morning when Master Tez had called her into his study to chastise her, so she had a chance to beg a large meal from Cook before her punishment began at noon. Cook, who looked like an ordinary human, (and generally was except during certain phases of the moon) gave her as many omelets and pieces of bacon as she could stuff herself with. Then she marched herself over to the punishment stocks at the corner of Master Tez’s manor.
It was set under a shady willow tree, beside the kitchen’s herb garden. The herb garden itself was part of the extensive lawns of Master Tez’s manor, some ten acres of sculpted landscape behind his home, an equal amount hemming it in on the remaining three sides. Like the few other elven homes Andrea had been privy to see, the landscape looked almost wild, but in truth was the product of careful tending, lacking anything like real predators, or (heavens forbid) a weed.
The manor house itself was a series of interconnected towers, some six in all, ranging from two to five stories in height, the circles interlocking each other in some sacred Elven pattern which didn’t make much sense to Andrea, but which Master Tez had assured her was aesthetically pleasing. The highest tower was set aside for Master Tez’s chambers, and rooms for the rare honored guest. The second lowest was the kitchens, and the lowest housed the manor’s slaves. The last was where Andrea had her small room, which wasn’t much bigger than a pair of wardrobes stuck together, but it was certainly more privacy than she’d ever had in the girls dormitory in the orphanage. Most of the other manor slaves were housed similarly, though the groom slept with his charges in the stables and Miss Layla’s family had several rooms together for her husband and children.
She sat beside the stocks, waiting for Master Tez to arrive. He came walking up in a few moments, looking considerably calmer than when he’d ordered her punishment.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Yes, Master Tez,” Andrea replied. She settled herself on the wooden bench, and lay her ankles in the stocks, which Master Tez closed and locked. It was lined with leather, and not terribly uncomfortable. She’d ended up here twice before for infractions of the manor’s rules, though never for longer than a day and not without food or reading.
She’d been told by Cook and Groom that other elves sometimes used far harsher punishments, whippings, beatings, sometimes worse things, to keep their servitors in line. Master Tez had never touched her in such a manner. Indeed, he’d instructed the staff more than once to act more cowed when the rare visitor stopped by, in order to keep up the pretense of a normal household. Andrea wasn’t sure why Master Tez was so kind, when other elves were so cruel, but she was grateful for it. Grateful for her own little room in the slave quarters. Grateful for the two meals a day she was granted, with vegetables other than lentils, bread that was never moldy, and actual meat. Grateful for having friends here, both Master Tez and her fellow slaves, who all seemed to be in on their own joke against elven society.
Perhaps that was why Master Tez’s anger had frightened her so. She could talk back willingly to him and often had, but this one minor theft (if you could call rooting through the refuse a theft) seemed to have made him angry as nothing else ever had.
“You’ll be let out at the usual times to relieve yourself,” Master Tez noted. He set done a water jug and cup in the grass beside her. “Now at least attempt to think about what you just did, all right?”
“Yes, Master Tez,” she answered meekly. It wasn’t as if she had much of a choice. No book?
“Good girl,” he said, and absentmindedly patted her on the head, before turning about and leaving her.
Alone.
With no book.
It wasn’t all bad. She had a good view of the gardens. Cook came out once to gather herbs, and spoke to her briefly. Layla’s children, all of them friends, spent an hour or so with her talking (but knew better to bring out cards or a board to play checkers or backgammon). But as the afternoon wore on the visitors left and she started to grow bored. When Arthur finally came by with a book in his hand and a leash cradled under the stump of his other arm, she was so happy to see him that the ogre started to blush even through his dark green skin.
Arthur clipped the lead to her collar, unlocked the stocks, and lead her back inside briefly to the Necessary. Then he lead her back, and re-secured her. Then too her surprise, he took one of his ever present chapbooks from the pocket of his vest and held it up to his pence-nez to read.
“Master Tez said I wasn’t to have a book,” she told him.
“Yer not readin’, I am,” Arthur said primly. Then he opened the chapbook to its first page, and began to read aloud the story of The Lord of the Island. It was a fantastic tale of a distant island in the Middlesea, ruled for generations by one family, but secretly controlled by an evil, immortal vizier. It was one of Andrea favorites, though she sure not one of Arthur’s. He tended to go for either history plays or silly comedies.
He finished just as the summer sun began to got below the horizon, and Andrea yawned. “Thank you, Arthur.”
“Y’r welcome, Missy,” Arthur said. “Try to sleep.” Then he laid down on ground and propped up his head with his good arm.
“Master Tez isn’t making you watch over me, is he, Arthur?” she asked. “You don’t have to.”
“Na’,” Arthur answered. “The grass is comfy, compared to some beds I been in.” Then he closed his eyes and shortly began to snore.
Andrea tried to sleep as best she could, but being forced to sit up by the pole behind her back defeated any chance, except for brief catnaps. In the morning Arthur allowed her another trip to the Necessary and by the end of the day she was feeling very sorry indeed for upsetting Master Tez as she had.
The second evening Arthur read in her general vicinity again and she actually fell asleep, out of sheer exhaustion rather than comfort. Sometime during the night she must have been granted her release, for when Andrea awoke she was lying in her own bed, dressed in her sleeping gown.
She was sore all over from the stocks, but at least it was done. She got dressed quickly and headed down to the kitchen to get some of the heavenly pancakes she could smell Cook fixing. She was well into her second stack when she felt a tap on her shoulder, and turned to see Master Tez standing over her.
“Hu’lo, M’ster,” Andrea mumbled, then swallowed a mouthful pancake and syrup.
“Hello, Andrea. Do you think you’ve learned your lesson?” Master Tez didn’t look angry anymore at least. His face was back to the friendly, faintly amused expression that seemed to be most normal for him.
“Yessir,” she answered, ducking her head.
“Walk with me then,” he ordered and she followed him out of the kitchens and to a secluded place in the gardens, near a pavilion used during the rare times when he invited guests to his estate. “Do you understand why you were punished?”
“Because I stole a knife.”
“Partially, but there’s a more serious reason. Now why did you steal the knife and those leather scraps?”
She blinked at the question. “I was gonna carve them, the leather I mean.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted t’ figure how it was done.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to make something nice for Arthur.” Arthur usually wore a leather belt or harness of some sort, to hang tools and pouches for books, or just to help with things too awkward to carry one-handed.
“I see,” Tez said. He frowned a moment, then fished out a leash from the pouch at his belt. He hooked the leash to her collar and led her towards the manse's gate. They were heading to town then, Andrea realized. Animals and slaves were required to be leashed at all times when inside the limits of the elven city. Master Tez's manse was less than a mile outside the city, though it often felt to Andrea as if it was in the wilderness by itself, so skilled was elven agriculture and architecture at hiding evidence of civilization in the Wood.
“Where are we going, Master Tez?” she asked as they walked.
“Hush, servitors do not speak unless spoken to,” he admonished.
She bit down on her lip and obeyed, conscious of the other elves they'd begun to pass on the path leading into town. Occasionally Tez received a nod of recognition from a passerby, but no one seemed to notice her. She was a slave, invisible. It was almost comforting, not receiving the abuse that had been habitually directed at her during the few times she'd dared venture out of her old orphanage. Slightly less comforting when she remember the explanation Master Tez had given her about the reaction. “Most elves simply do not care. You will, after all, be long dead before their children leave their homes.”
He led her to a small compound in the merchant's grove, consisting of a few small free standing turrets around a central courtyard, where some half dozen elves of both sexes were working at long tables, carving and decorating hunks of leather with fine steel tools. A small, sallow faced goblin slave trotted up to them, kneeling before Tez and asking, “How may this one serve you in his master's house, honored sir?”
“Inform your master that Tez, Merchant to Outlanders, desires to speak to him,” Tez stated politely. As the goblin scooted off, he muttered softly, “I do hate it when they're made to address everyone in the third person. Makes for some terribly stilted conversations.” Andrea ducked her head down and bit hard on her lip to keep from laughing.
In a few moments the workshop's master appeared, an elf thinner and taller than Tez by at least four inches, with long white blond hair. He looked down on Tez and gave him a short bow, from a one who created to one who merely served as conduit for commerce. A sharp and important difference in Elven society, so Tez had taught Andrea. “Tez,” the other elf greeted. “How do you fare?”
“Acceptably, Artisan Velan” Tez replied. “I've much time for recreation, since traffic over the border has become so difficult.”
Velan made a neutral sound. 'The humans do us a favor, eliminating half-breeds at least. The momentary disruption in traffic for a decade or three is a small price to pay.”
Andrea swallowed and stared down at her toes, not trusting herself to look up at the elf artisan right at that moment.
“I have heard that opinion several times in the past few years,” Tez noted, his voice carefully flat. “How does your Art fare?”
Valen's voice took a proud tone. “Acceptably. Permit me to show you.” He led Tez into the largest of the turrets and Andrea followed. Unusual that, given that normally she was left tethered outside or sent to the slave quarters when he visited with other elves. Valen noted it too, pausing at the doorway.
“Permit the indulgence,” Tez asked. “She has expressed some interest in the art of leather working and it amuses me to feed it.” Andrea glanced at Master Tez out of the corner of her eye. After the browbeating she'd received earlier, could he be serious?
“As you wish,” Valen said grudgingly. He gestured them inside and Andrea dared to look up, her breath catching in her throat. The first floor of the turret was a single room, lit by wide, open windows at the four cardinal points. At its center was... well, she supposed it was armor, though it couldn't be anything that had ever appeared on a battlefield. It was a full suit of leather armor, from boots to body to a finely crafted face guard, made in overlapping layers of supple, dark brown leather the shade of oak, fashioned in the shape of oversized leaves. Nearly every square inch of the armor was covered in patterns of twining rose vines, with flowering red buds painted in clever dyes. The carving appeared to be complete, with only a few rose petals remaining to be painted into blood red life.
“Nice,” was the only thing Master Tez said. Andrea very nearly bit through her tongue at the outrageous understatement.
“A minor work, for a local lord's daughter,” Valen agreed. “It only required some five year's effort. Would you be interested in commissioning something for yourself, of a finer quality?”
“Not at this time,” Master Tez demurred. “My business is of a more practical nature today.” Valen tilted his head in question and Master Tez continued. “My servitor has expressed some interest in learning the craft of leather working. I would be most pleased if she could apprentice under you.”
Valen's face grew sour. “You wish to train a slave in an Art? Why bother granting skill to an ephemeral?”
Tez's expression of polite respect did not change a whit, but Andrea imagined his voice grew a shade frostier. “Because it would please me. Will you do it?”
“Arrangements could be made,” Velan said reluctantly. “I have an apprentice who lacks forberance in her pursuit of the Art. Dealing with a half-breed would be an effective way of learning patience in trying build her own skills.”
Master Tez smiled coolly. “You misunderstand. I do not want my servitor passed off to an apprentice. I want you to instruct her.”
“What?” Velan exclaimed in outrage. “You joke poorly, Tez. I will not sully my own teachers by lowering myself to teach an ephemeral half-breed.”
“Yes, you will. I desire that Andrea being given all the training she able to absorb, which I suspect might be a great deal, given proper motivation. You will be the one to give it to her.”
“I will do no such thing!”
“Yes, you will,” Master Tez repeated, “Doshinavar.”
Andrea didn't recognize the High Elven word that Master Tez had used to address Velan, but evidentially the craftsman did. His face, already naturally pale, went stark white and his eyes widened in shock.
“How... how could you know of that?” Valen demanded. “My clan does not speak of it to anyone! It would be our death!”
“Only your family knows of it,” Tez agreed. “Your family and the one who helped them bury this shame so deeply that it would not be heard.”
Velan shook his head. “You aren't... you can't be that Tez! It is impossible! You would not be a mere merchant!”
“I am whatever I choose to be,” Tez said calmly. Velan's only response to this was to drop to his knees, kowtowing, his forehead touching the polished wooden floor.
“Please,” the craftsman begged, “what do you want of me?”
“To train my servitor, to the best of your ability.”
“But... but what else?” he cried.
“Nothing,” Tez replied. “All that I desire is training for Andrea. Do this and your clan may consider their debt to me paid. Fail...” He let the word hang in the air. Valen looked up... Good God, was the elf crying?
“I will! I will! I swear to you I will!” Velan promised. “Mercy, please, Tez!”
Master Tez ignored Velan's blubbering and went on. “Andrea will take up residence in your household in a day or two. I will expect her to be allow one free day during the week to attend me and demonstrate what progress she has made. You will, I expect, treat her with the same respect that you would your other apprentices. Complete. Respect.”
“Yes, yes, of course!”
“They you need never fear hearing that word spoken aloud again. Good day, Master Velan.” Tez bowed politely and led her out the door. Andrea trailed behind him, biting back the questions running through her mind until they were well away from the town and far from any listener on the road.
“Master Tez, please, what was that all about?” she asked.
Tez made a dismissive wave of his hand. “Velan's family committed an act of... well, the details hardly matter at this date, but suffice it to say that by burying it, rather than admitting their error from the very beginning, they have managed to make a minor sin into a powerful shame. One I helped hide some time ago, out of a sense of pity to the parties involved. It left them indebted to me.”
“So Velan is scared you'll tell everyone?”
“Exactly.”
“But... if he's that afraid of you, if they all are, why would you use that against them, just to get some training for me?”
“It removes the debt they owe, which make them breathe easier, More importantly to me, it will give you the opportunity to receive training you'd otherwise have no chance to get (Velan is an excellent craftsman, I should tell you) and it cuts what ties connect me to his clan of idiots. That means quite a bit to me.” After they walked in silence for a few moments, he added. “Mind, actually chatting with that specieist idiot was annoying. I will expect you to assuage my irritation by putting your utmost effort into your training. If I discover you are not... I will have to make the decision as to whether to keep you in my household.”
Andrea swallowed hard, feeling her collar rub against her throat. “I'll try, Master Tez. I promise, I'll try really hard!”
Master Tez smiled. “Good. I am looking forward to what you will create for Arthur then.”
27
“It's not fair,” Andrea muttered to herself. She sniffed, picked up the soggy kerchief off her work table once again and wiped her sore nose. Then she bent over her work piece again, a long strip of tanned leather to incorporated into a vest, which she tapped at carefully with one of her smallest chisels. The engraving she was working would resemble a long, unrolled scroll when she was done, filled with quotations from some of Arthur's favorite stories. Stories that he'd never read to her, or himself, ever again.
There was a sharp knock on the workshop's door, and she called out, “Go away!” to whomever it was coming to bother her this time. Why couldn't they all leave her alone so she could finish her work?
“Open the door, Andrea,” Master Tez called back. “Now.” His tone was sharp, un-amused, and commanding. Andrea bit down on her lip, wiping tears out of her face as she set her tool down and unlatched the door. He was standing in front of her, arms crossed, looking irritated, dressed in a casual style he favored sometimes, just a simple linen tunic and trews. “That was hardly an appropriate way to address your master, Andrea.”
“I didn't know it was you,” she said defensively, “I thought it was Cook again, trying to bring me something to eat. What do you want?”
“For you to go to bed. You've been locked in your workshop for over a day and a half, with no food nor drink nor rest. It's time for you to sleep.”
“I'm not...” she yawned widely. “Damnit, I wasn't sleepy until you said something. Anyway, I can't go to bed yet. I have to finish Arthur's vest.”
Master Tez's stern expression softened marginally. “Not to be callous, Andrea, but there's no hurry at this point.”
“Don't you think...” She was mortified as a heavy sob escaped her throat and the tears began to roll down again. “Don't you think I know that.” She fell back into her chair as Master Tez rested his hip against her work table. “Why... why did he have to go? He... he... he just left! He... he.. didn't say a word to anyone! Didn't say a word to muh... muh... me!” As she cried uncontrollably, she felt Master Tez's hands circle her waist, letting her bury her face into his shoulder.
“Shh... don't be angry at Arthur,” Master Tez said, after letting her cry for a few more moments. “Ogres leave when they feel themselves grow weak and begin to die because that is what ogres do. It is a biological imperative, which they can no more ignore than you can persuade yourself not to bleed four days out of the month. It says volumes about him that Arthur managed to fight that urge when he first lost his arm. We could have lost him that day, instead of twenty years later.”
“He's all alone out there,” Andrea said. “He's all alone in the woods, curled up in hollow maybe, dying, or already dead.”
“If he isn't dead yet, then he is sleeping right now. As they grow weak from hunger, an ogre goes comatose. They begin to dream, remembering all the happy, wonderful moments in their lives, before they pass on to whatever is beyond this world. Right now, I suspect he is remembering you, Andrea.”
She raised her head up from Master Tez's now sodden shoulder. “Do you think?”
“Well, either that or Cook's meat pies,” Master Tez said with deadpan seriousness. It enough to make her snort out a laugh, which made her hiccup, which made her laugh again. By the time she'd recovered from that, he had dried her face off with a kerchief and was leading her to the door. “Dinner for you, then bed immediately thereafter, so your master so orders.”
“Yes, Master Tez.” She followed him obediently out of the crafting tower where her workshop was nestled, heading towards the slave quarters. “I’m sorry about making your shirt all soggy.”
Master Tez smiled. “Why do you think I came to you wearing an older one?” Which made her laugh again.
Halfway to the slave quarters, they both paused as they heard a shout at the gate, and a pair of elven riders on blindingly white horses trotted through onto the grounds, heading towards the main tower. They were dressed in matching uniforms of dark blue silk accented with silver embroidery, and bore curving elven swords and fine bows in their saddles.
“Cursed gods,” Tez muttered as they riders headed towards them. “Eyes down, Andrea. Better, get on your knees and don't even think about raising your head up,” he warned quietly. She hastened to obey, dropping down to her knees and bowing her head, starting resolutely at the grass as a double set of horse hooves entered her field of vision.
“You there, servant!” Andrea very nearly raised her head at that before Master Tez gave her a sharp kick to her ankle.
“Yes, noble warrior?” Master Tez answered, his voice carefully neutral.
“Where is Tez, the one you have the privilege of obeying?” She realized abruptly what had happened. Not wearing his usual merchant finery, the two riders had mistaken her master for an elven commoner, higher than a non-elven slave, but not as worthy of consideration as a noble or craftsman.
“He is on the grounds, noble warrior. The last I saw of him he was heading towards the slave quarters.”
“My thanks, servant,” the rider replied. They trotted off again, leaving Andrea staring at the churned up earth where the horses' hooves had dug in.
“You can raise your head now, Andrea.” She stood up, brushing off her knees as the riders came to a halt by the door to the slave tower.
“Who are they?” she asked.
Master Tez was frowning. “White Riders, from the Moot Grove, equivalent to a human king's personal guard. When away from the Grove they speak in the Moot's name. There are only nine of them, none less than two thousand years old, and they are trained to the heights of war and diplomacy. To send two on a single errand means something has twisted the Moot's tail fiercely.”
“Why are they here?”
His frown deepened. “I have an idea, and you can likely blame that fool Velan for the answer.”
In the distance the riders had dismounted and knocked on the door of the slave tower. Groom opened it and stepped out, dropping immediately to his knees in front of the two noble elves. Andrea couldn’t hear their query to him, but Groom raised his head to look around, eventually spotting where she and Master Tez stood and pointed in their direction. The first elf glanced towards them, looking angry. He raised an arm as if to strike Groom down, but his companion quickly grabbed his wrist and stayed his hand.
“At least one of them has a modicum of intelligence,” Master Tez noted acidly. “If he had injured Groom, they would have both answered for it.” He took a deep breath and his face visibly relaxed as the White Riders walked back towards them, leading their horses and looking considerably more humble. She started to kneel again but Master Tez caught her elbow and motioned for her to remain standing.
“Forgive me, but you are… you are Tez?” the first rider asked. His grey-faced expression reminded Andrea of Valen’s that day twenty years ago when Master Tez had spoken that single word that had reduced an arrogant master craftsman to a scraping, bowing penitent.
“I am. Who might you be?”
“Rider Avanar. My companion is Rider Kavin.” Avanar swallowed. “Forgive me, Eldest, but you did not identify yourself…”
“Nor did you,” Master Tez said. “I feel no obligation to wave my name about to those who do not give theirs first.”
“I am sorry, Eldest. When I saw how you were dressed, standing next to a mongrel slave, I assumed…”
“Yes you did. Pray you don’t in the future. Did you expect me to be wandering about my own manor wearing polished silver armor and a magical cloak?”
Rider Kavin, who up until that point had been doing a fair imitation of a blank stone, blinked and bit down on laugh behind his companion’s back. Andrea did her best not to look directly at him. It appeared at least one of the White Riders had a sense of humor.
“Not precisely, Eldest,” Avanar said, appearing to recover his wits. “Again, please forgive my error and rest assured it will not be made in the future.”
“I shall keep that in mind,” Tez allowed. “Now, if you would be so kind, what prompted the Moot Grove to send two White Riders on a single errand? Not to speak to me, surely.”
“It was precisely for that reason…”
“Not precisely,” Kavin interjected. He was met by a glare from Avanar, who quickly regained his composure and focused again on Tez.
“It was thought, by certain individuals outside the Moot…” At that statement Kavin raised his eyes to the heavens innocently, “…that a single Rider would not be enough to persuade you, Eldest.”
Tez sighed. “Persuade me to do what? And if your next statement contains any words such as lead, rule, wisdom, or guidance please leave immediately and inform the Moot Grove that they will just have to solve all of their problems by themselves.”
Andrea turned to stare with frank astonishment at her master. She knew he was odd for an elf, but who was he that he was thought of so highly by the leaders of all the elves, and that he thought so little of them? Eldest?
Avanar, who had opened his mouth to apparently say at least one of those forbidden words, closed it again. After a moment’s pause he said, “Perhaps it would be best if we discussed this more privately, Eldest.”
She felt her heart soar as Master Tez stated flatly, “Andrea has my absolute trust, Rider. You may speak in front of her as you would to me. And I have no interest at all in inviting either of you into my home.”
“But she is…”
“Wearing a slave collar, which I strongly suspect is at the root of the problems that the Moot wishes to discuss with me. Speak to both her and myself, or not at all.” Tez drew himself up a little taller. “First off, you may explain how you learned of my presence in the Domain.”
Rider Kavin cleared his throat and took over the task of explanations from Avanar. “The Artisan Velan traveled to the Moot Grove to beg forgiveness for his clan, in recognition of crimes that need not be mentioned here. A curious thing to do, given that they'd been well hidden for several thousand years, but apparently the need to unburden himself after encountering you became too much to bear. During his speech, he mentioned you had been witness to the crimes personally. Obviously the only elf that could have been witness and still living to tell the tale was Tez the Eldest.”
“Of course,” Master Tez said.
“Naturally this was the subject of great excitement in the Moot Grove. To discover that the Eldest was living amongst elvenkind again was a cause for much joy.”
“Because, of course, the first thing that I would think to do upon being revealed would be to solve all of their problems for them,” Master Tez said flatly.
Kavin shrugged. “That was the general gist of the debate that Avanar and I attended, yes.”
“We are in a state of crisis, Eldest!” Avanar declared. “The Domain is surrounded by enemies! Elvenkind is threatened with extinction by the lesser races! We need your w-- aid!”
Master Tez raised an eyebrow. “Extinction is the last thing I believe elvenkind ever has to worry about, unless my luck changes. Whether or not the Domain survives the next hundred years is a more believable question, and none of my concern.”
"You would see Elven civilization destroyed?!"
"Every civilization dies, Rider Avanar," Master Tez said, his voice cool and unsympathetic, "even Elven ones. I have seen this entire world and the races that inhabit it, elven, human, goblin, ogre and other forgotten peoples whose names are remembered by only me, reduced to complete, lawless barbarism no less than five times. What happens in this small corner of the world will be remembered, if at all, as a minor footnote in history, until it too is forgotten. What will occur to the arrogant people that inhabit this fortress forest is of no concern to me at all."
"Told you this was pointless," Kavin said to Avanar, before his companion could protest again. "Come along, brother. We will leave the Eldest to his solitude, and report our failure to the Moot. Safe riding to you, Eldest Tez."
"And to you, Rider Kavin," Master Tez replied. He folded his arms as Avanar and Kavin mounted their horses, looking impatient to see them away.
They started to trot towards the manor gate, but halfway there Rider Kavin brought his horse to a halt and wheeled it around to face Andrea and Master Tez. "What of your slaves?" he called back to them.
"What of them? They are my concern alone, Rider."
"The Barrier is designed to keep out the curious and the foolish, to make outlanders cautious and unwilling to test its defenses further. There are some in the Moot Grove who believe it can also withstand a determined assault by an organized and forewarned force, but I and others are not so sanguine. If this fortress forest is breached, would you defend it?"
"I would decamp," Master Tez said flatly.
"Taking all of your slaves with you?"
"Naturally."
"You have, what, at least two score of them? Do you believe you can protect them all, with no other allies? Where would you go to? No elf is welcome in ogre or goblin territory, and I doubt you could find a sympathetic human either at the moment, not with the arrogant lot that hold the crowns of the eastern kingdoms. How many of them will you be willing to lose, during the flight to whatever safety you think you can find beyond the forest?"
“You are remarkably compassionate when it comes to the subject of servitors.”
“I am not an idiot. I know the history of the old border wars and the reputation we have managed to garner in the human kingdoms.”
Master Tez's eyes narrowed. "What alternative do you suggest?"
Kavin dismounted, holding his hands out in supplication. "Approach the Moot. You are the Eldest. Whatever your opinion of the Domain and however much you hold yourself apart from it, your words would carry great weight."
"Do you seriously imagine they would listen to me?"
"Enough might."
“Then take these words to them. Tell them if they wish to insure peaceful borders, they must start with emancipating all slaves held in the Domain, and allow them to return to their homes or serve of their own will. Take down the Barrier and allow the free trade of merchants. Stop hiding like frightened rabbits and engage the world beyond with more than careful diplomatic missions and sneering merchants deigning to bring elven goods to the heathens.”
Avanar finally spoke again. “You would allow lesser races to walk about freely in the Domain? You would deny us laborers to permit our nation to be kept in the style it deserves?”
“If it can not keep itself in this current style with willing labor, then it does not deserve to stand,” Master Tez said.
“You speak as if you hold moral strength in this argument, but you hold slaves willingly enough,” Avanar sniffed.
“He takes in slaves that would not survive in the outside world!” Andrea interrupted. “If Master Tez had not rescued me, I would have been dead at the hands of a mob! I may wear his steel around my throat, but I and everyone here serves him willingly, out of loyalty, not fear!”
“Andrea, be silent,” Master Tez ordered, and she nearly bit down on her tongue in her haste to comply. He turned back towards the other elves. “My servitor spoke out of turn, but her words are true enough. Thanks to the idiotic policies of the Moot, the only means for others to use the Domain as sanctuary is for an elf to agree to collar and enslave them. If the Moot would finally remove the Barrier and that foolish law, I would free all of my servitors the next day.”
“Eldest, please, I must beg you again,” Kavin said. “Your words have merit, I can hear them. Why will you not bring them to the Moot Grove?”
“Because if they refuse to see reality, with all their supposed wisdom and resources, they will not listen to me,” Master Tez stated flatly. “I have no desire to lead, especially those who would not follow me. That path inevitably leads to disaster.”
“I accept your,” Kavin visibly bit down on the word wisdom, “opinion. Come on, Avanar. We must find lodging for the night.” He remounted his horse and rode off without another word, Avanar following with evident dismay.
When they had passed through the manor gate and disappeared, Master Tez let out a sigh. “I’m going to have to move again,” he said absently.
“Move?” Andrea asked.
“They’re just going to come back, demanding I fix all of their problems for them,” Master Tez said. “Better to just move everyone out of the manor and deeper into the woods, away from settlements. Perhaps then they’ll get the idea that I want nothing to do with the Moot and its self-inflicted problems.”
“But… don’t you care about the other elves? Wouldn’t it be bad if the Domain was invaded?” The gods knew she’d rather not have her own unlamented birth country come knocking around any time soon.
“As neither side is in the right, who would actually win is of little importance to me. I care nothing for other elves. Racial loyalty is perhaps one of the most pernicious habits for sentients to rid themselves of.”
“I don’t understand.” In counterpoint to her complaint, Andrea’s stomach took that moment to growl loudly.
“Don’t worry yourself about it,” Master Tez advised. “Come along, let’s see you fed.”
She followed dutifully, but questions in her mind still demanded to be asked. “Master Tez, why did those White Riders think you are so important? They called you Eldest, what does that mean?”
“It means I’m the eldest elf,” he replied.
“Eldest elf where?”
“Eldest elf, anywhere.”
“You’re joking.”
Master Tez’s expression became cool. “Not about that, I’m not.”
“Shouldn’t that make you king or something?”
He let out an annoyed snort. “Or something, yes. They imagine it gives me wisdom that I truly do not possess. I have never managed to convince them otherwise.”
“But why are you a merchant then?”
“Because I choose to be. The ability to choose whatever one wishes to be is a very rare gift. As a merchant I go where I will. As a king I would shackled to a court, as surely as I’m going to shackle you to a dinner table if you don’t stop asking foolish questions and get some food.”
“Yes, Master,” she replied obediently, then contradicted herself by asking, “So how old are you anyway?”
A few minutes later, as she tried to cut her meat with her hands shackled in front of her in the dining hall, Andrea reflected that perhaps laughing in disbelief hadn’t been the wisest reaction.
TBC
10
Andrea sat on the edge of the hard wooden chair in the center of the study and stared at her toes, while Master Tez glowered at down at her. The objects of his ire, a couple of worn bits of scrap leather and an improvised scraper made from a discarded kitchen knife, sat on the end table beside her chair.
“What do you have to say for yourself, Andrea?” he asked coolly.
“I didn’t think I did anything wrong,” she mumbled.
“Incorrect answer,” he said. “Now look up at me and try again.”
She raised her head and looked into his green eyes. He wasn’t angry with her. Angry would have meant she could have yelled back without feeling too bad about it. No, he looked disappointed, which had to be ten times worse. “Sorry,” she whispered, feeling stupid.
“You’ll have to speak up, my hearing isn’t what it was.”
“I said I’m sorry,” she repeated.
“Better,” he allowed. “Do you know what you’re sorry about?”
“Taking those bits of scrap and the broken knife from the garbage.”
He harrumphed at her. “Partially correct. Stealing the scraps is minor offense. You’re a slave, you aren’t supposed to know better. That,” he tapped the knife, “is a weapon.”
“It’s a table knife,” she protested. “It’s not even a sharp table knife anymore.”
“Elven Law doesn’t make a distinction over that sort of thing. It is a knife, found in your quarters, outside the kitchen and the dining chamber, ergo it is a weapon in the possession of a slave.” His fist slammed down on the table and she jumped in her seat. “Slaves are executed for that, Andrea. Do you fancy me having to order Arthur to lop your head off in front of Cook and the rest of the household?”
“You wouldn’t do that!” she said.
Now Master Tez looked genuinely upset. “If it had been any other elf but me who found you with those things, they would have ordered it without a second thought. If I had found them with another elf in my company, they would have expected me to order it and questioned why I would not.”
“You would have killed me?” she asked, starting to shake.
Master Tez sighed, the anger disappearing. “No,” he admitted. “But I would have been forced to do… something… damned inconvenient to fix the situation. Perhaps even decamp to another country.”
“Give up the manor?” she asked weakly.
“Possibly,” he said. “Though fortunately it was I, not anyone else, who found you with these things, so it doesn’t matter. But that doesn’t change that you did something very foolish and will be punished for it.”
“Yes, Master,” she said, her voice properly meek.
“For two days.”
“Yes, Master.”
“In the stocks.”
“Yes, Master.” Well, that could be worse.
“Without a book.”
Andrea’s jaw dropped. “That’s not… I mean, yes, Master.” She revised her opinion. Master Tez must have been truly angry to deny her a book.
It was only mid-morning when Master Tez had called her into his study to chastise her, so she had a chance to beg a large meal from Cook before her punishment began at noon. Cook, who looked like an ordinary human, (and generally was except during certain phases of the moon) gave her as many omelets and pieces of bacon as she could stuff herself with. Then she marched herself over to the punishment stocks at the corner of Master Tez’s manor.
It was set under a shady willow tree, beside the kitchen’s herb garden. The herb garden itself was part of the extensive lawns of Master Tez’s manor, some ten acres of sculpted landscape behind his home, an equal amount hemming it in on the remaining three sides. Like the few other elven homes Andrea had been privy to see, the landscape looked almost wild, but in truth was the product of careful tending, lacking anything like real predators, or (heavens forbid) a weed.
The manor house itself was a series of interconnected towers, some six in all, ranging from two to five stories in height, the circles interlocking each other in some sacred Elven pattern which didn’t make much sense to Andrea, but which Master Tez had assured her was aesthetically pleasing. The highest tower was set aside for Master Tez’s chambers, and rooms for the rare honored guest. The second lowest was the kitchens, and the lowest housed the manor’s slaves. The last was where Andrea had her small room, which wasn’t much bigger than a pair of wardrobes stuck together, but it was certainly more privacy than she’d ever had in the girls dormitory in the orphanage. Most of the other manor slaves were housed similarly, though the groom slept with his charges in the stables and Miss Layla’s family had several rooms together for her husband and children.
She sat beside the stocks, waiting for Master Tez to arrive. He came walking up in a few moments, looking considerably calmer than when he’d ordered her punishment.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Yes, Master Tez,” Andrea replied. She settled herself on the wooden bench, and lay her ankles in the stocks, which Master Tez closed and locked. It was lined with leather, and not terribly uncomfortable. She’d ended up here twice before for infractions of the manor’s rules, though never for longer than a day and not without food or reading.
She’d been told by Cook and Groom that other elves sometimes used far harsher punishments, whippings, beatings, sometimes worse things, to keep their servitors in line. Master Tez had never touched her in such a manner. Indeed, he’d instructed the staff more than once to act more cowed when the rare visitor stopped by, in order to keep up the pretense of a normal household. Andrea wasn’t sure why Master Tez was so kind, when other elves were so cruel, but she was grateful for it. Grateful for her own little room in the slave quarters. Grateful for the two meals a day she was granted, with vegetables other than lentils, bread that was never moldy, and actual meat. Grateful for having friends here, both Master Tez and her fellow slaves, who all seemed to be in on their own joke against elven society.
Perhaps that was why Master Tez’s anger had frightened her so. She could talk back willingly to him and often had, but this one minor theft (if you could call rooting through the refuse a theft) seemed to have made him angry as nothing else ever had.
“You’ll be let out at the usual times to relieve yourself,” Master Tez noted. He set done a water jug and cup in the grass beside her. “Now at least attempt to think about what you just did, all right?”
“Yes, Master Tez,” she answered meekly. It wasn’t as if she had much of a choice. No book?
“Good girl,” he said, and absentmindedly patted her on the head, before turning about and leaving her.
Alone.
With no book.
It wasn’t all bad. She had a good view of the gardens. Cook came out once to gather herbs, and spoke to her briefly. Layla’s children, all of them friends, spent an hour or so with her talking (but knew better to bring out cards or a board to play checkers or backgammon). But as the afternoon wore on the visitors left and she started to grow bored. When Arthur finally came by with a book in his hand and a leash cradled under the stump of his other arm, she was so happy to see him that the ogre started to blush even through his dark green skin.
Arthur clipped the lead to her collar, unlocked the stocks, and lead her back inside briefly to the Necessary. Then he lead her back, and re-secured her. Then too her surprise, he took one of his ever present chapbooks from the pocket of his vest and held it up to his pence-nez to read.
“Master Tez said I wasn’t to have a book,” she told him.
“Yer not readin’, I am,” Arthur said primly. Then he opened the chapbook to its first page, and began to read aloud the story of The Lord of the Island. It was a fantastic tale of a distant island in the Middlesea, ruled for generations by one family, but secretly controlled by an evil, immortal vizier. It was one of Andrea favorites, though she sure not one of Arthur’s. He tended to go for either history plays or silly comedies.
He finished just as the summer sun began to got below the horizon, and Andrea yawned. “Thank you, Arthur.”
“Y’r welcome, Missy,” Arthur said. “Try to sleep.” Then he laid down on ground and propped up his head with his good arm.
“Master Tez isn’t making you watch over me, is he, Arthur?” she asked. “You don’t have to.”
“Na’,” Arthur answered. “The grass is comfy, compared to some beds I been in.” Then he closed his eyes and shortly began to snore.
Andrea tried to sleep as best she could, but being forced to sit up by the pole behind her back defeated any chance, except for brief catnaps. In the morning Arthur allowed her another trip to the Necessary and by the end of the day she was feeling very sorry indeed for upsetting Master Tez as she had.
The second evening Arthur read in her general vicinity again and she actually fell asleep, out of sheer exhaustion rather than comfort. Sometime during the night she must have been granted her release, for when Andrea awoke she was lying in her own bed, dressed in her sleeping gown.
She was sore all over from the stocks, but at least it was done. She got dressed quickly and headed down to the kitchen to get some of the heavenly pancakes she could smell Cook fixing. She was well into her second stack when she felt a tap on her shoulder, and turned to see Master Tez standing over her.
“Hu’lo, M’ster,” Andrea mumbled, then swallowed a mouthful pancake and syrup.
“Hello, Andrea. Do you think you’ve learned your lesson?” Master Tez didn’t look angry anymore at least. His face was back to the friendly, faintly amused expression that seemed to be most normal for him.
“Yessir,” she answered, ducking her head.
“Walk with me then,” he ordered and she followed him out of the kitchens and to a secluded place in the gardens, near a pavilion used during the rare times when he invited guests to his estate. “Do you understand why you were punished?”
“Because I stole a knife.”
“Partially, but there’s a more serious reason. Now why did you steal the knife and those leather scraps?”
She blinked at the question. “I was gonna carve them, the leather I mean.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted t’ figure how it was done.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to make something nice for Arthur.” Arthur usually wore a leather belt or harness of some sort, to hang tools and pouches for books, or just to help with things too awkward to carry one-handed.
“I see,” Tez said. He frowned a moment, then fished out a leash from the pouch at his belt. He hooked the leash to her collar and led her towards the manse's gate. They were heading to town then, Andrea realized. Animals and slaves were required to be leashed at all times when inside the limits of the elven city. Master Tez's manse was less than a mile outside the city, though it often felt to Andrea as if it was in the wilderness by itself, so skilled was elven agriculture and architecture at hiding evidence of civilization in the Wood.
“Where are we going, Master Tez?” she asked as they walked.
“Hush, servitors do not speak unless spoken to,” he admonished.
She bit down on her lip and obeyed, conscious of the other elves they'd begun to pass on the path leading into town. Occasionally Tez received a nod of recognition from a passerby, but no one seemed to notice her. She was a slave, invisible. It was almost comforting, not receiving the abuse that had been habitually directed at her during the few times she'd dared venture out of her old orphanage. Slightly less comforting when she remember the explanation Master Tez had given her about the reaction. “Most elves simply do not care. You will, after all, be long dead before their children leave their homes.”
He led her to a small compound in the merchant's grove, consisting of a few small free standing turrets around a central courtyard, where some half dozen elves of both sexes were working at long tables, carving and decorating hunks of leather with fine steel tools. A small, sallow faced goblin slave trotted up to them, kneeling before Tez and asking, “How may this one serve you in his master's house, honored sir?”
“Inform your master that Tez, Merchant to Outlanders, desires to speak to him,” Tez stated politely. As the goblin scooted off, he muttered softly, “I do hate it when they're made to address everyone in the third person. Makes for some terribly stilted conversations.” Andrea ducked her head down and bit hard on her lip to keep from laughing.
In a few moments the workshop's master appeared, an elf thinner and taller than Tez by at least four inches, with long white blond hair. He looked down on Tez and gave him a short bow, from a one who created to one who merely served as conduit for commerce. A sharp and important difference in Elven society, so Tez had taught Andrea. “Tez,” the other elf greeted. “How do you fare?”
“Acceptably, Artisan Velan” Tez replied. “I've much time for recreation, since traffic over the border has become so difficult.”
Velan made a neutral sound. 'The humans do us a favor, eliminating half-breeds at least. The momentary disruption in traffic for a decade or three is a small price to pay.”
Andrea swallowed and stared down at her toes, not trusting herself to look up at the elf artisan right at that moment.
“I have heard that opinion several times in the past few years,” Tez noted, his voice carefully flat. “How does your Art fare?”
Valen's voice took a proud tone. “Acceptably. Permit me to show you.” He led Tez into the largest of the turrets and Andrea followed. Unusual that, given that normally she was left tethered outside or sent to the slave quarters when he visited with other elves. Valen noted it too, pausing at the doorway.
“Permit the indulgence,” Tez asked. “She has expressed some interest in the art of leather working and it amuses me to feed it.” Andrea glanced at Master Tez out of the corner of her eye. After the browbeating she'd received earlier, could he be serious?
“As you wish,” Valen said grudgingly. He gestured them inside and Andrea dared to look up, her breath catching in her throat. The first floor of the turret was a single room, lit by wide, open windows at the four cardinal points. At its center was... well, she supposed it was armor, though it couldn't be anything that had ever appeared on a battlefield. It was a full suit of leather armor, from boots to body to a finely crafted face guard, made in overlapping layers of supple, dark brown leather the shade of oak, fashioned in the shape of oversized leaves. Nearly every square inch of the armor was covered in patterns of twining rose vines, with flowering red buds painted in clever dyes. The carving appeared to be complete, with only a few rose petals remaining to be painted into blood red life.
“Nice,” was the only thing Master Tez said. Andrea very nearly bit through her tongue at the outrageous understatement.
“A minor work, for a local lord's daughter,” Valen agreed. “It only required some five year's effort. Would you be interested in commissioning something for yourself, of a finer quality?”
“Not at this time,” Master Tez demurred. “My business is of a more practical nature today.” Valen tilted his head in question and Master Tez continued. “My servitor has expressed some interest in learning the craft of leather working. I would be most pleased if she could apprentice under you.”
Valen's face grew sour. “You wish to train a slave in an Art? Why bother granting skill to an ephemeral?”
Tez's expression of polite respect did not change a whit, but Andrea imagined his voice grew a shade frostier. “Because it would please me. Will you do it?”
“Arrangements could be made,” Velan said reluctantly. “I have an apprentice who lacks forberance in her pursuit of the Art. Dealing with a half-breed would be an effective way of learning patience in trying build her own skills.”
Master Tez smiled coolly. “You misunderstand. I do not want my servitor passed off to an apprentice. I want you to instruct her.”
“What?” Velan exclaimed in outrage. “You joke poorly, Tez. I will not sully my own teachers by lowering myself to teach an ephemeral half-breed.”
“Yes, you will. I desire that Andrea being given all the training she able to absorb, which I suspect might be a great deal, given proper motivation. You will be the one to give it to her.”
“I will do no such thing!”
“Yes, you will,” Master Tez repeated, “Doshinavar.”
Andrea didn't recognize the High Elven word that Master Tez had used to address Velan, but evidentially the craftsman did. His face, already naturally pale, went stark white and his eyes widened in shock.
“How... how could you know of that?” Valen demanded. “My clan does not speak of it to anyone! It would be our death!”
“Only your family knows of it,” Tez agreed. “Your family and the one who helped them bury this shame so deeply that it would not be heard.”
Velan shook his head. “You aren't... you can't be that Tez! It is impossible! You would not be a mere merchant!”
“I am whatever I choose to be,” Tez said calmly. Velan's only response to this was to drop to his knees, kowtowing, his forehead touching the polished wooden floor.
“Please,” the craftsman begged, “what do you want of me?”
“To train my servitor, to the best of your ability.”
“But... but what else?” he cried.
“Nothing,” Tez replied. “All that I desire is training for Andrea. Do this and your clan may consider their debt to me paid. Fail...” He let the word hang in the air. Valen looked up... Good God, was the elf crying?
“I will! I will! I swear to you I will!” Velan promised. “Mercy, please, Tez!”
Master Tez ignored Velan's blubbering and went on. “Andrea will take up residence in your household in a day or two. I will expect her to be allow one free day during the week to attend me and demonstrate what progress she has made. You will, I expect, treat her with the same respect that you would your other apprentices. Complete. Respect.”
“Yes, yes, of course!”
“They you need never fear hearing that word spoken aloud again. Good day, Master Velan.” Tez bowed politely and led her out the door. Andrea trailed behind him, biting back the questions running through her mind until they were well away from the town and far from any listener on the road.
“Master Tez, please, what was that all about?” she asked.
Tez made a dismissive wave of his hand. “Velan's family committed an act of... well, the details hardly matter at this date, but suffice it to say that by burying it, rather than admitting their error from the very beginning, they have managed to make a minor sin into a powerful shame. One I helped hide some time ago, out of a sense of pity to the parties involved. It left them indebted to me.”
“So Velan is scared you'll tell everyone?”
“Exactly.”
“But... if he's that afraid of you, if they all are, why would you use that against them, just to get some training for me?”
“It removes the debt they owe, which make them breathe easier, More importantly to me, it will give you the opportunity to receive training you'd otherwise have no chance to get (Velan is an excellent craftsman, I should tell you) and it cuts what ties connect me to his clan of idiots. That means quite a bit to me.” After they walked in silence for a few moments, he added. “Mind, actually chatting with that specieist idiot was annoying. I will expect you to assuage my irritation by putting your utmost effort into your training. If I discover you are not... I will have to make the decision as to whether to keep you in my household.”
Andrea swallowed hard, feeling her collar rub against her throat. “I'll try, Master Tez. I promise, I'll try really hard!”
Master Tez smiled. “Good. I am looking forward to what you will create for Arthur then.”
27
“It's not fair,” Andrea muttered to herself. She sniffed, picked up the soggy kerchief off her work table once again and wiped her sore nose. Then she bent over her work piece again, a long strip of tanned leather to incorporated into a vest, which she tapped at carefully with one of her smallest chisels. The engraving she was working would resemble a long, unrolled scroll when she was done, filled with quotations from some of Arthur's favorite stories. Stories that he'd never read to her, or himself, ever again.
There was a sharp knock on the workshop's door, and she called out, “Go away!” to whomever it was coming to bother her this time. Why couldn't they all leave her alone so she could finish her work?
“Open the door, Andrea,” Master Tez called back. “Now.” His tone was sharp, un-amused, and commanding. Andrea bit down on her lip, wiping tears out of her face as she set her tool down and unlatched the door. He was standing in front of her, arms crossed, looking irritated, dressed in a casual style he favored sometimes, just a simple linen tunic and trews. “That was hardly an appropriate way to address your master, Andrea.”
“I didn't know it was you,” she said defensively, “I thought it was Cook again, trying to bring me something to eat. What do you want?”
“For you to go to bed. You've been locked in your workshop for over a day and a half, with no food nor drink nor rest. It's time for you to sleep.”
“I'm not...” she yawned widely. “Damnit, I wasn't sleepy until you said something. Anyway, I can't go to bed yet. I have to finish Arthur's vest.”
Master Tez's stern expression softened marginally. “Not to be callous, Andrea, but there's no hurry at this point.”
“Don't you think...” She was mortified as a heavy sob escaped her throat and the tears began to roll down again. “Don't you think I know that.” She fell back into her chair as Master Tez rested his hip against her work table. “Why... why did he have to go? He... he... he just left! He... he.. didn't say a word to anyone! Didn't say a word to muh... muh... me!” As she cried uncontrollably, she felt Master Tez's hands circle her waist, letting her bury her face into his shoulder.
“Shh... don't be angry at Arthur,” Master Tez said, after letting her cry for a few more moments. “Ogres leave when they feel themselves grow weak and begin to die because that is what ogres do. It is a biological imperative, which they can no more ignore than you can persuade yourself not to bleed four days out of the month. It says volumes about him that Arthur managed to fight that urge when he first lost his arm. We could have lost him that day, instead of twenty years later.”
“He's all alone out there,” Andrea said. “He's all alone in the woods, curled up in hollow maybe, dying, or already dead.”
“If he isn't dead yet, then he is sleeping right now. As they grow weak from hunger, an ogre goes comatose. They begin to dream, remembering all the happy, wonderful moments in their lives, before they pass on to whatever is beyond this world. Right now, I suspect he is remembering you, Andrea.”
She raised her head up from Master Tez's now sodden shoulder. “Do you think?”
“Well, either that or Cook's meat pies,” Master Tez said with deadpan seriousness. It enough to make her snort out a laugh, which made her hiccup, which made her laugh again. By the time she'd recovered from that, he had dried her face off with a kerchief and was leading her to the door. “Dinner for you, then bed immediately thereafter, so your master so orders.”
“Yes, Master Tez.” She followed him obediently out of the crafting tower where her workshop was nestled, heading towards the slave quarters. “I’m sorry about making your shirt all soggy.”
Master Tez smiled. “Why do you think I came to you wearing an older one?” Which made her laugh again.
Halfway to the slave quarters, they both paused as they heard a shout at the gate, and a pair of elven riders on blindingly white horses trotted through onto the grounds, heading towards the main tower. They were dressed in matching uniforms of dark blue silk accented with silver embroidery, and bore curving elven swords and fine bows in their saddles.
“Cursed gods,” Tez muttered as they riders headed towards them. “Eyes down, Andrea. Better, get on your knees and don't even think about raising your head up,” he warned quietly. She hastened to obey, dropping down to her knees and bowing her head, starting resolutely at the grass as a double set of horse hooves entered her field of vision.
“You there, servant!” Andrea very nearly raised her head at that before Master Tez gave her a sharp kick to her ankle.
“Yes, noble warrior?” Master Tez answered, his voice carefully neutral.
“Where is Tez, the one you have the privilege of obeying?” She realized abruptly what had happened. Not wearing his usual merchant finery, the two riders had mistaken her master for an elven commoner, higher than a non-elven slave, but not as worthy of consideration as a noble or craftsman.
“He is on the grounds, noble warrior. The last I saw of him he was heading towards the slave quarters.”
“My thanks, servant,” the rider replied. They trotted off again, leaving Andrea staring at the churned up earth where the horses' hooves had dug in.
“You can raise your head now, Andrea.” She stood up, brushing off her knees as the riders came to a halt by the door to the slave tower.
“Who are they?” she asked.
Master Tez was frowning. “White Riders, from the Moot Grove, equivalent to a human king's personal guard. When away from the Grove they speak in the Moot's name. There are only nine of them, none less than two thousand years old, and they are trained to the heights of war and diplomacy. To send two on a single errand means something has twisted the Moot's tail fiercely.”
“Why are they here?”
His frown deepened. “I have an idea, and you can likely blame that fool Velan for the answer.”
In the distance the riders had dismounted and knocked on the door of the slave tower. Groom opened it and stepped out, dropping immediately to his knees in front of the two noble elves. Andrea couldn’t hear their query to him, but Groom raised his head to look around, eventually spotting where she and Master Tez stood and pointed in their direction. The first elf glanced towards them, looking angry. He raised an arm as if to strike Groom down, but his companion quickly grabbed his wrist and stayed his hand.
“At least one of them has a modicum of intelligence,” Master Tez noted acidly. “If he had injured Groom, they would have both answered for it.” He took a deep breath and his face visibly relaxed as the White Riders walked back towards them, leading their horses and looking considerably more humble. She started to kneel again but Master Tez caught her elbow and motioned for her to remain standing.
“Forgive me, but you are… you are Tez?” the first rider asked. His grey-faced expression reminded Andrea of Valen’s that day twenty years ago when Master Tez had spoken that single word that had reduced an arrogant master craftsman to a scraping, bowing penitent.
“I am. Who might you be?”
“Rider Avanar. My companion is Rider Kavin.” Avanar swallowed. “Forgive me, Eldest, but you did not identify yourself…”
“Nor did you,” Master Tez said. “I feel no obligation to wave my name about to those who do not give theirs first.”
“I am sorry, Eldest. When I saw how you were dressed, standing next to a mongrel slave, I assumed…”
“Yes you did. Pray you don’t in the future. Did you expect me to be wandering about my own manor wearing polished silver armor and a magical cloak?”
Rider Kavin, who up until that point had been doing a fair imitation of a blank stone, blinked and bit down on laugh behind his companion’s back. Andrea did her best not to look directly at him. It appeared at least one of the White Riders had a sense of humor.
“Not precisely, Eldest,” Avanar said, appearing to recover his wits. “Again, please forgive my error and rest assured it will not be made in the future.”
“I shall keep that in mind,” Tez allowed. “Now, if you would be so kind, what prompted the Moot Grove to send two White Riders on a single errand? Not to speak to me, surely.”
“It was precisely for that reason…”
“Not precisely,” Kavin interjected. He was met by a glare from Avanar, who quickly regained his composure and focused again on Tez.
“It was thought, by certain individuals outside the Moot…” At that statement Kavin raised his eyes to the heavens innocently, “…that a single Rider would not be enough to persuade you, Eldest.”
Tez sighed. “Persuade me to do what? And if your next statement contains any words such as lead, rule, wisdom, or guidance please leave immediately and inform the Moot Grove that they will just have to solve all of their problems by themselves.”
Andrea turned to stare with frank astonishment at her master. She knew he was odd for an elf, but who was he that he was thought of so highly by the leaders of all the elves, and that he thought so little of them? Eldest?
Avanar, who had opened his mouth to apparently say at least one of those forbidden words, closed it again. After a moment’s pause he said, “Perhaps it would be best if we discussed this more privately, Eldest.”
She felt her heart soar as Master Tez stated flatly, “Andrea has my absolute trust, Rider. You may speak in front of her as you would to me. And I have no interest at all in inviting either of you into my home.”
“But she is…”
“Wearing a slave collar, which I strongly suspect is at the root of the problems that the Moot wishes to discuss with me. Speak to both her and myself, or not at all.” Tez drew himself up a little taller. “First off, you may explain how you learned of my presence in the Domain.”
Rider Kavin cleared his throat and took over the task of explanations from Avanar. “The Artisan Velan traveled to the Moot Grove to beg forgiveness for his clan, in recognition of crimes that need not be mentioned here. A curious thing to do, given that they'd been well hidden for several thousand years, but apparently the need to unburden himself after encountering you became too much to bear. During his speech, he mentioned you had been witness to the crimes personally. Obviously the only elf that could have been witness and still living to tell the tale was Tez the Eldest.”
“Of course,” Master Tez said.
“Naturally this was the subject of great excitement in the Moot Grove. To discover that the Eldest was living amongst elvenkind again was a cause for much joy.”
“Because, of course, the first thing that I would think to do upon being revealed would be to solve all of their problems for them,” Master Tez said flatly.
Kavin shrugged. “That was the general gist of the debate that Avanar and I attended, yes.”
“We are in a state of crisis, Eldest!” Avanar declared. “The Domain is surrounded by enemies! Elvenkind is threatened with extinction by the lesser races! We need your w-- aid!”
Master Tez raised an eyebrow. “Extinction is the last thing I believe elvenkind ever has to worry about, unless my luck changes. Whether or not the Domain survives the next hundred years is a more believable question, and none of my concern.”
"You would see Elven civilization destroyed?!"
"Every civilization dies, Rider Avanar," Master Tez said, his voice cool and unsympathetic, "even Elven ones. I have seen this entire world and the races that inhabit it, elven, human, goblin, ogre and other forgotten peoples whose names are remembered by only me, reduced to complete, lawless barbarism no less than five times. What happens in this small corner of the world will be remembered, if at all, as a minor footnote in history, until it too is forgotten. What will occur to the arrogant people that inhabit this fortress forest is of no concern to me at all."
"Told you this was pointless," Kavin said to Avanar, before his companion could protest again. "Come along, brother. We will leave the Eldest to his solitude, and report our failure to the Moot. Safe riding to you, Eldest Tez."
"And to you, Rider Kavin," Master Tez replied. He folded his arms as Avanar and Kavin mounted their horses, looking impatient to see them away.
They started to trot towards the manor gate, but halfway there Rider Kavin brought his horse to a halt and wheeled it around to face Andrea and Master Tez. "What of your slaves?" he called back to them.
"What of them? They are my concern alone, Rider."
"The Barrier is designed to keep out the curious and the foolish, to make outlanders cautious and unwilling to test its defenses further. There are some in the Moot Grove who believe it can also withstand a determined assault by an organized and forewarned force, but I and others are not so sanguine. If this fortress forest is breached, would you defend it?"
"I would decamp," Master Tez said flatly.
"Taking all of your slaves with you?"
"Naturally."
"You have, what, at least two score of them? Do you believe you can protect them all, with no other allies? Where would you go to? No elf is welcome in ogre or goblin territory, and I doubt you could find a sympathetic human either at the moment, not with the arrogant lot that hold the crowns of the eastern kingdoms. How many of them will you be willing to lose, during the flight to whatever safety you think you can find beyond the forest?"
“You are remarkably compassionate when it comes to the subject of servitors.”
“I am not an idiot. I know the history of the old border wars and the reputation we have managed to garner in the human kingdoms.”
Master Tez's eyes narrowed. "What alternative do you suggest?"
Kavin dismounted, holding his hands out in supplication. "Approach the Moot. You are the Eldest. Whatever your opinion of the Domain and however much you hold yourself apart from it, your words would carry great weight."
"Do you seriously imagine they would listen to me?"
"Enough might."
“Then take these words to them. Tell them if they wish to insure peaceful borders, they must start with emancipating all slaves held in the Domain, and allow them to return to their homes or serve of their own will. Take down the Barrier and allow the free trade of merchants. Stop hiding like frightened rabbits and engage the world beyond with more than careful diplomatic missions and sneering merchants deigning to bring elven goods to the heathens.”
Avanar finally spoke again. “You would allow lesser races to walk about freely in the Domain? You would deny us laborers to permit our nation to be kept in the style it deserves?”
“If it can not keep itself in this current style with willing labor, then it does not deserve to stand,” Master Tez said.
“You speak as if you hold moral strength in this argument, but you hold slaves willingly enough,” Avanar sniffed.
“He takes in slaves that would not survive in the outside world!” Andrea interrupted. “If Master Tez had not rescued me, I would have been dead at the hands of a mob! I may wear his steel around my throat, but I and everyone here serves him willingly, out of loyalty, not fear!”
“Andrea, be silent,” Master Tez ordered, and she nearly bit down on her tongue in her haste to comply. He turned back towards the other elves. “My servitor spoke out of turn, but her words are true enough. Thanks to the idiotic policies of the Moot, the only means for others to use the Domain as sanctuary is for an elf to agree to collar and enslave them. If the Moot would finally remove the Barrier and that foolish law, I would free all of my servitors the next day.”
“Eldest, please, I must beg you again,” Kavin said. “Your words have merit, I can hear them. Why will you not bring them to the Moot Grove?”
“Because if they refuse to see reality, with all their supposed wisdom and resources, they will not listen to me,” Master Tez stated flatly. “I have no desire to lead, especially those who would not follow me. That path inevitably leads to disaster.”
“I accept your,” Kavin visibly bit down on the word wisdom, “opinion. Come on, Avanar. We must find lodging for the night.” He remounted his horse and rode off without another word, Avanar following with evident dismay.
When they had passed through the manor gate and disappeared, Master Tez let out a sigh. “I’m going to have to move again,” he said absently.
“Move?” Andrea asked.
“They’re just going to come back, demanding I fix all of their problems for them,” Master Tez said. “Better to just move everyone out of the manor and deeper into the woods, away from settlements. Perhaps then they’ll get the idea that I want nothing to do with the Moot and its self-inflicted problems.”
“But… don’t you care about the other elves? Wouldn’t it be bad if the Domain was invaded?” The gods knew she’d rather not have her own unlamented birth country come knocking around any time soon.
“As neither side is in the right, who would actually win is of little importance to me. I care nothing for other elves. Racial loyalty is perhaps one of the most pernicious habits for sentients to rid themselves of.”
“I don’t understand.” In counterpoint to her complaint, Andrea’s stomach took that moment to growl loudly.
“Don’t worry yourself about it,” Master Tez advised. “Come along, let’s see you fed.”
She followed dutifully, but questions in her mind still demanded to be asked. “Master Tez, why did those White Riders think you are so important? They called you Eldest, what does that mean?”
“It means I’m the eldest elf,” he replied.
“Eldest elf where?”
“Eldest elf, anywhere.”
“You’re joking.”
Master Tez’s expression became cool. “Not about that, I’m not.”
“Shouldn’t that make you king or something?”
He let out an annoyed snort. “Or something, yes. They imagine it gives me wisdom that I truly do not possess. I have never managed to convince them otherwise.”
“But why are you a merchant then?”
“Because I choose to be. The ability to choose whatever one wishes to be is a very rare gift. As a merchant I go where I will. As a king I would shackled to a court, as surely as I’m going to shackle you to a dinner table if you don’t stop asking foolish questions and get some food.”
“Yes, Master,” she replied obediently, then contradicted herself by asking, “So how old are you anyway?”
A few minutes later, as she tried to cut her meat with her hands shackled in front of her in the dining hall, Andrea reflected that perhaps laughing in disbelief hadn’t been the wisest reaction.
TBC