TVisTV Book 4: Chapter 18 (RAW) (Patreon)

Chapter 18 - Insurance

“It occurred to me that if I could invent a machine, a gun, which could by its rapidity of fire, enable one man to do as much battle duty as a hundred, that it would, to a large extent supersede the necessity of large armies, and consequently, exposure to battle and disease would be greatly diminished.”

- Richard J. Gatling

“Milly, you are, as always, annoyingly late,” Seraphina complained with a small huff as she met her maid in the courtyard, just as the Palisa Slug began to ease itself down beside the wagon. “I trust you brought the things I required?”

In Seraphina’s mind, it was people like Miriam who had made micromanagement a most necessary tool. Otherwise useless things, they were only as useful as the detailed instruction they had been given.

“Eeep! Of course, milady. I would not dare forget,” Miriam answered quickly, clutching at the front of her traveling cloak. “I will see to it that they are offloaded at once.”

“Ah, there you are, Haze,” Seraphina continued, her attention already moving past the maid as her eyes caught those of her Bard, Haze Finleigh.

Haze still wore traveling clothes, replete with trousers, her fiery orange hair tucked beneath that ridiculous hat with a feather in it. The young noblewoman decided to forgive the abominable choice in fashion on the grounds that it was eye-catching, and therefore perhaps suitable to Haze’s brand as a Bard.

“I hope the road treated you well?” Seraphina asked.

“It was swift enough, Lady Seraphina,” Haze answered, though the tiredness in her voice rather softened the claim. “Though I could do with a lie down, I think.”

“Oh, I am sure we can see to that,” Seraphina declared, looking pointedly at several of the servants lingering nearby. “Please see that they are given rooms close enough to mine.”

“Of course, Your Grace,” the servants answered in near unison, bowing once before moving to obey.

And there they were.

The crates full of the priceless Mithril—the Godmetal—from beneath the Sariens Duchy, mined by grateful dwarves to whom Seraphina had given place and purpose. She felt quite pleased with herself. The ingots would form part of her dowry, and in addition to that was her little backup plan: another long case, this one resembling a metal coffin to the untrained eye, which two burly men were struggling to offload from the wagon.

What rested inside would be her insurance, should anything troubling come up in the Empire. Hope for the best, plan for the worst, and all of that. Seraphina truly believed in stacking the deck in her favor whenever possible.

“Oh, well done, Milly,” Seraphina praised with a foxy smile. “Well done, indeed. It seems you can listen every once in a while. Now, how much did this cost us?”

“Us,” of course, meant “me,” for it was laughable to imagine that Seraphina de Sariens would have a mere maid as a partner, let alone a monster at that.

Miriam adjusted her large spectacles. “We paid the Guild for thirteen Mithril-rank Adventurers, milady, plus compensation for casualties. It came to near nineteen hundred gold. With a few bonuses added, perhaps two thousand.”

A skilled journeyman could probably earn ten gold coins a month, which made the sum truly astronomical.

Seraphina narrowed her eyes. “I thought you could bargain them down.”

A look of panic crossed the maid’s lightly freckled face. “But, milady, you said the urgency was—”

“What did I tell you about my distaste for the word ‘but,’ Milly?”

Don't you dare gainsay me, Seraphina sent out with her necklace.

Miriam clammed up immediately.

“Well then, get everything sorted and make yourself at home, I suppose. There will be a feast in my honor this evening, so make yourself presentable by then,” Seraphina ordered, smiling at both Haze and Miriam. “And Haze, should you not be too tired after refreshing yourself, the Duchess might be honored to hear you play the Chordrelle after dinner.”

“It would, of course, be an honor, Lady Seraphina,” Haze said with a fixed smile and an even more fixed expression.

***

By the time Seraphina returned to her rooms, Desdemona had already taken full possession of the sitting room.

Several garments had been laid out across chairs, screens, and the back of a couch, each one in the flowing style of the Empire. Silk and spider-silk shimmered in layered folds, long sleeves trailing like banners, the high waists and crossed collars. Seraphina could appreciate beauty. The young girl did not always, however, appreciate the number of pins, sashes, inner layers, and ornamental lies required to produce it. But such was the price of fashion that women had paid since time immemorial.

Desdemona stood in the middle of it all, holding a robe of pale gold against herself while frowning into a mirror.

“No,” she decided. “Too much.”

Seraphina paused at the doorway. “Are you attempting to blind my grandmother’s hall?”

Desdemona ignored this and tossed the garment over the arm of a chair that was probably worth a craftsman's annual income. “The feast is in your honor, so you must look beautiful, but not as if you are trying too hard. I must look beautiful as well, but not as if I am attempting to compete with you.”

“How very honest of you,” commented Seraphina wryly.

“I am your good friend.”

A pair of maids moved carefully around them, their arms full of folded underrobes, sashes, hair ornaments. Miriam, freshly washed and redressed after the journey, hovered near the dressing with the expression of someone who wished to be useful enough not to be noticed.

Desdemona picked up a robe of deep crimson and held it toward Seraphina. “What about this?”

“No,” she answered with a small shake of her head

De Savant pursed her lips. “You did not even look.”

“I looked enough,” the blonde girl sighed.

“It would make you look striking,” her friend complained.

“It is my feast, not my bridal meal.”

Desdemona’s expression suggested she found Seraphina’s respone rather annoying.

The young de Savant girl moved on to a robe of pale lavender next, then white, then a silver that made Seraphina immediately narrow her eyes. That one was dismissed without comment, though Desdemona’s glance toward her showed that she had very much noticed.

“You should wear blue,” Desdemona declared at last.

Seraphina shrugged her shoulders. “I often wear blue.”

“Yes, but not that blue.” She pointed with unnecessary drama toward a folded set of robes resting near the screen. “That one.”

The garment in question was sky blue, soft and clear, the sort of color one found in the winter. Its outer robe was light and free, with embroidery along the cuffs in pale thread that suggested drifting clouds and distant cranes. The inner layers were white and a slightly deeper blue, restrained without being dull. It was elegant without making her look old and too mature.

Seraphina looked at it for a moment longer. “It is acceptable,” she admitted.

Desdemona smiled in triumph. “Which means you love it.”

“I said acceptable,” shot back the girl, trying her best not to roll her eyes.

Desdemona crossed her arms. “You said acceptable in the voice you use when you do not wish to admit someone else has chosen correctly.”

Miriam, traitor that she was, made a tiny sound that might have been agreement before immediately pretending to cough. Seraphina looked at her and the maid became intensely fascinated by a fold in another dress.

“And you?” the young noblewoman asked, turning back to Desdemona. “Have you decided which particular shade of vanity will represent you this evening?”

“Forest green,” Desdemona answered clearly and lifted a robe that had clearly already been her choice from the beginning. “Something to make a lie of the season.”

It suited her, which was immediately annoying for Seraphina.

The green was rich without being dark, layered over an underrobe of warm cream and belted with a sash patterned in gold and brown thread. The embroidery along the sleeves was more flamboyant than Seraphina’s, all curling vines and little beasts hidden between and behind leaves.

They helped each other, the dressing taking longer than Seraphina wished, which meant it took exactly as long as formal dressing always did. There were inner layers to smooth, collars to align, sashes to tighten, sleeves to arrange, ornaments to consider, reject, and reconsider.

Desdemona spoke through most of it, naturally.

She wondered whether the young men in attendance would be handsome, and how they might compare to offerings from the Empire. She wondered whether northern men were as serious and as glum as the northern weather. De Savant wondered whether Spike would be brought out again for the guests to admire, and whether Seraphina would permit anyone else to touch him, and whether the Unicorn would dispose of any who tried. To Seraphina, who answered and commented on all of these things almost automatically, it was all a form of pleasant time-eating background noise.

“I imagine he will bite anyone who deserves it,” the young blonde girl commented.

“What if I wish to touch him?” mused her friend.

“Then you should first consider whether you are attached to your fingers.”

Desdemona sighed dramatically. “You never let me have any fun.”

Seraphina allowed her friend to settle the final layer of the blue robe over her shoulders. The fabric fell beautifully, which improved her mood by a small but measurable degree. Miriam adjusted the long sleeve on one side, then the other, then stepped back with a nervous little breath as though she had just survived a small skirmish.

Desdemona came to stand beside Seraphina before the mirror, forest green beside sky blue, dark brown hair beside gold. They made a fine and beautiful contrast, Seraphina could admit that much.

“You look like a princess from a poem,” Desdemona said almost dreamily.

Seraphina looked at their reflection. “And you look like the sort of girl who leads princes astray into forests for a hundred years.”

The other girl’s eyes brightened with wicked delight. “Why, that might have been the nicest backhanded compliment you have ever said to me.”

“I shall try not to repeat the error,” Seraphina returned with one of her trademark smiles.

***

By the time they descended to the hall, the feast had already begun. The great hall of the fortress had been into something that defied the cold season. Fires roared in the hearths, Zajasite burned blue in iron chandeliers above, and long tables had been arranged beneath the hanging banners of the house. Servants moved between the guests with platters of roasted meats, dark bread, vegetables glazed in butter, and pies that steamed when cut.

The northern nobles had come dressed in their best; rich fur, heavy jewels, and a sort of martial dignity pervaded their attire. Household Knights stood easier now, cups in hand, speaking with retainers and lesser lords. Even a few of the more respectable Adventurers had been allowed back in, but were placed far enough from the high table that their presence could only be called noble largesse.

When Seraphina and Desdemona entered, the hall turned toward them.

For the young girl, it was a pleasant thing, to be looked at properly. To be the center of attention, even shared.

There was curiosity, admiration, calculation, and, in a few places, something very close to awe. She, the granddaughter of Carcaronne, the girl who had ridden the Unicorn, the slighted bride, and the future link to the Empire. She was all of these things at once, and she was much more.

Duchess Adelaide sat at the high table with an expression of restrained satisfaction. The older woman gestured Seraphina forward, and the hall rose.

“To my beautiful granddaughter,” Adelaide declared once Seraphina had taken her place. “Lady Seraphina de Sariens, who has shown today that honor may be insulted, but is also punished.”

Cups lifted in cheer. “To Lady Seraphina!”

Seraphina inclined her head with suitable modesty. Suitable, in this instance, meant not smiling quite as much as she wished.

The meal that followed was excessive in the proper fashion of the high nobility. There was ice-drake meat served in thin slices with sharp mustard, Cronir stew rich enough to make lesser arteries surrender, river fish baked with herbs, roasted roots, spiced apples. Southern wine flowed, but ale and stronger spirits flowed faster. 

A flushed Desdemona, seated beside her, leaned close after the third toast. “That one has been staring at me for ten minutes.”

Seraphina raised an eyebrow “Which one?”

“The one with the wide shoulders.”

“That describes half the hall.”

“The one with the shoulders and the face that looks like it was cut from fresh marble.”

Seraphina looked.

A young lordling near the second table immediately looked away with all the subtlety of a falling suit of armor.

“Not bad,” Seraphina said. “But you are from different stations.”

“Must you be so focused on only that? I did not ask if you thought him a good match. I asked if you noticed his good looks. Did you notice that he is rather handsome?”

“He is adequate,” the blonde girl admitted indifferently.

Desdemona looked quite exasperated. “Sera…”

“He looks strong,” she added neutrally.

Desdemona hid a laugh behind her sleeves. “Your generosity overwhelms me.”

Across the hall, Frest had been given a place of modest honor, close enough to be seen, far enough not to confuse the order of the world. He seemed to be enjoying himself as he was quite deep in his cups. Miriam stood with the other attendants along the wall, looking a bit like a fish out of water. Haze, meanwhile, had eaten with the focused determination of someone focused on enjoying whatever it was that life had to offer.

Eventually, as plates were cleared and the hall settled into that warm, dangerous hour after a feast when people became sentimental, Duchess Adelaide tapped two fingers lightly against the table.

The sound was small, but the hall quieted.

“Haze Finleigh,” she called, “my granddaughter speaks well of your music.”

The Bard rose with the expression of someone who had hoped, foolishly, that food might excuse her from employment. Still, she bowed well enough and took up the Chordrelle from its case.

The instrument was as beautiful as Seraphina remembered. Its flowing patterns remained: entwined vines, sea-creatures, and forest beasts, all worked together with such delicate craft that it still seemed magical and like something shaped by the mystical Fae. Yet for all its beauty, the instrument held no magic of its own. It carried only the magic its Bard’s skill gave it. 

Conversation faded and then she began to play.

It was not one of the soft courtly pieces Seraphina had expected, nor some tragic ballad about dead lovers, drowned kings, or princesses locked in towers. Instead, Haze chose something lively, bright, and wickedly quick. The notes leapt from the Chordrelle like sparks from a stirred fire, dancing over one another in a rhythm that made boots shift beneath tables and fingers tap against cups. The tune was not known here in the north, but even a few of the older men clapped along anyway.

Haze had learned a few lessons from Korean pop music.

By the second turn of the melody, half the hall had joined the rhythm, and by the third, several of the younger knights had pulled serving girls, ladies, and one another into a rough space between the tables. The dance that followed was not elegant by any standards, but it was warm, fast, and full of stamping feet. 

Desdemona watched with shining eyes. “Oh, we should dance.”

“No,” the blonde girl replied simply. 

“Sera.”

“No, I am not in the mood for it.”

This time Desdemona rolled her eyes. “It is your feast.”

Desdemona took her hand anyway.

Seraphina allowed herself to be pulled up only because resisting too strongly would have made the matter seem important. Also, the hall was watching, and there were times when one had to give people a little beauty in exchange for all their obedience.

So she danced.

The sky blue of her sleeves moved around her like water beneath the crystal lights, and Desdemona’s forest green flashed beside her as the music spun faster. Haze played on, orange hair bright beneath her ridiculous feathered cap, her fixed smile growing wider as the hall answered her tune with claps, laughter, and the thunder of the dance.

For a little while, Seraphina permitted herself to enjoy it. She just hoped that they did not ask her to sing at her own feast.