Lost in reminiscence, I made my way down the stairs. Just off the entry tower, near the bottom of the stair, was my father’s library, one of my favorite rooms in the house. I laid my hand on the brass handle of the library door…
“Now just hold there a moment, young woman,” spoke a crusty, quavering voice from behind me. A familiar voice. “Might I ask who you are and what business you have in the duke’s library, much less ordering the servants about like you was mistress here?”
I smiled as I spun about to face her. “Was I not always the one to get my way, Nellia?”
The elderly woman was propped up on a walking stick, but she came near toppling over backward in surprise. “Seriana! May the gods strike me blind and dumb if it not be my darling girl… after so long and so dark a road… oh my…” She fumbled at her pockets.
I caught hold of her and guided her to a leather-covered bench. “I was beginning to doubt there was any familiar face to be found here, but if I were to choose one to see, it would be yours. It makes me think the place must be properly run after all.”
“Oh, child, what a blessing it is to see you. There’s none but me left that you’d know, to be sure. The mistress”- the word was dressed with scorn enough to tell me the old woman’s opinion of Tomas’s wife-“brought mostly her own people from the city. She was of a mind to dismiss us all. But His Grace, your brother, wouldn’t allow her to send me away, nor John Hay nor Bets Sweeney, the sewing woman. But you can see as things are sadly out of sorts. The new girls care only for the mistress and her things. John Hay died two years ago, and Bets is pensioned off to live with her daughter in Graysteve, so I’m all as is left. Little worth in me neither. But these eyes is good enough to see my little sprite come home when I never thought she would.”
She patted my knee and dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. “Shall I have one of the girls open up your room? I’ve kept it set to rights in hopes you and your brother might make it up between you. We never believed what was said about you. Great wickedness we were told, but I knew my little Seri could no more do a great wickedness than she could eat a frog. The master wouldn’t speak of it. And mistress-well, she has little good to say of anybody- and so’s Bets and John Hay and myself would never credit ought she said of you.” Quite breathless, Nellia stopped. Waiting, perhaps…
The tales she’d heard of me were likely quite wicked- treason, heresy, consorting with sorcerers and all the evils attendant on such sordid association-crimes that would have cost my life had my brother not been the boyhood friend and sword champion of the King of Leire.
I wrapped my arm about her bony shoulders. “You mustn’t worry about anything you’ve heard. It was all a terrible misunderstanding. And I appreciate so much that you’ve cared for my things, but I’m not to stay. I’ve only come to speak to Philomena and her son. I was with Tomas when he died, and all was well between us at the last.”
Nellia’s pink-rimmed eyes filled with tears. “I’m glad to hear it. He was always a prideful boy, and the same as a man. Never learned to bend. Came by most everything as was his desire, but he’d no peace from it. Broke my heart it did, who knew him from a babe, to see him so high, but troubled so sore.”
“But his son-he spoke of him with great affection. Surely the boy brought him happiness.”
The old woman frowned and shook her head. “You’ve not met the young master, then?”
“No. I’ve been here only half an hour.”
“It’s right to say the duke-may holy Annadis write his name-took pride in the boy and had great hopes for him, but he’s not an easy child.”
“Tomas and I weren’t easy either.”
The old lady chuckled. “No. Easy was ne’er a word used in the servants’ hall about either of you, but this one… Well, you must meet him.” She glanced up and wrinkled her brow. “Shall I find out where he is?”
“I think it would be prudent if we were introduced in Lady Philomena’s presence.” I desired no personal relationship with the boy.
“That mightn’t be easy. He’s not one to sit at his mother’s knee or-” She broke off and waved a hand. “Ach, I’m too free. You must be perishing thirsty, and hungry, too, I’d guess. Shall I have a tray brought to the library?”
“That would be marvelous. And it would be kind if you would send someone to your mistress’s room to tell Nancy where I can be found. I’d like to know when the duchess wakes.”
“Done, my dearie.” Nellia wiped her eyes once more, patted my hands, and hobbled away.
My father’s library was almost the same as I remembered it-leather chairs, dark woods, and ceiling-high shelves stuffed with leather-bound books and rolled manuscripts. On the end wall farthest from the hearth was his giant map of the Four Realms: our own Leire colored in red, subject kingdoms Valleor in blue, Kerotea in brown, and the ever-rebellious Iskeran in yellow. And yet a great deal of dust lay about, along with a general air of neglect. The tables and desks had seen no oil or polish; the brass lamps were tarnished; and my father would have threatened to behead the hapless servant who had allowed the bindings of his books to crack or his priceless maps to curl in their display.
My father had been, first and foremost, a warrior. For twenty years he had fought his sovereign’s battles with skill and pride, always with more notches on his sword than his most grizzled veterans. But even more than fighting and glory, he had relished strategy and tactics, the marvelous interplay of soldier and general. Though not a scholarly man, he had accumulated a library of military history and philosophy unrivaled even at the University in Yurevan. He had collected maps, too, of all known lands and seas, ranging from ancient, primitive brushstrokes on silk or parchment that would crumble at a whisper to the most detailed, modern charts made by King Gevron’s military cartographers.
But long before the books and maps held any fascination for Tomas and me, we were drawn to the library by the contents of two glass-fronted display cases. The treasure inside was a wonder unknown in any other house of our acquaintance-hundreds of miniature soldiers, cast in such perfect detail that you could read the expressions on their tiny lead faces and distinguish the individual links in their chain mail. Foot soldiers and cavalry, knights and flag bearers, trumpeters and generals, heralds and kings were crafted in every possible position. There were horses, too: battle chargers rearing, racing, wheeling, and beasts of burden laden with water casks the size of a thumb or pulling tiny baggage wagons. Along with a miniature flotilla, awaiting a young admiral’s command, were armaments enough for a nation of finger-sized warriors.
Sometimes we would find the diminutive hosts deployed upon the maps of some ancient battlefield, poised to relive a day of blood and glory. Sometimes they were arrayed on the long, polished library tables as our father considered a new plan for smiting the enemies of Leire. But we couldn’t touch the armies if they were in use, so our delight was to find them captive in their velvet-lined cases. Then had we released the leaden hordes and devised our own games.
The soldiers were the first thing I looked for in the library. To my delight, the cabinets were just as I had last seen them, flanking my grandfather’s suit of plate armor. One cabinet held an army painted silver and blue, and the other a host of red and gold. I pulled open the door and reached for a silver swordsman and a horse caparisoned in blue, but passed them by when I saw the silver king, his sword still raised in royal majesty and his crown still bent from the days when Tomas and I would forever fight over him. Beside him was his herald, blowing an invisible trumpet, his instrument lost when Tomas sat on him in the dining room to hide from our father his terrible crime of removing a piece from the library.
“You’re not to touch them!”
I turned in surprise, still holding the silent herald, and glimpsed the shadow of someone sitting in the window seat, all but his boots obscured by green velvet draperies.
“But they do no good, sitting so quietly in their case. They are meant to be out and about, defending their king from his enemies, are they not? No soldier hides in his encampment forever.”